Almost Transparent Blue (1976) was written by Ry? Murakami (b. 1952) while he was a student at Musashino Art University, where he was enrolled in the sculpture program. It was his first novel and was awarded the Akutagawa Prize (Japan’s “most sought after” literary prize; previous winners include Kobo Abe and Kenzaburo Oe) and sold ~1.2 million copies (~1% of Japan’s population at-the-time) in six months.
One of the largest, softest, most complex areas of the human body is the ass. That asses are both sexual and fecal seems vaguely confusing. One considers the dual nature of asses and thinks “Freud, did Freud write about this, seems like he didn’t, seems like maybe he didn’t.” Asses are actually pretty rare. They seem to manifest mostly on mammals with 4 limbs of a certain length. Studies have shown that the ass evolved from the tail.
I thought that it was kind of a cliché to be so into it – some of the other students who had seen it even told me that – but I realized that even if that was so, Breathless was still resonating with young audiences, and there was something about it that distinguished it from other landmark films. So why Breathless? Why is it one of the key films in cinematic history? Why is it so fascinating for critics but equally so for average intellectually-minded audiences? What mark has it left?
