Burst City

1/5/2018

Burst City from 1982 is a punk rock operetta with the polemic stance that is essential for the anarchist strains of punk traditions. Sogo Ishii relies upon and extends punk rock aesthetics to a convincing gesamtkunstwerk that interestingly sits very well between the post-apocalypse of the time and the cyberpunk that is yet to come. But most of all, I'd say Burst City is a war movie. A war movie where the trenches have been exchanged for a dystopic industrial slum and the main weapons are words, clubs and guitars. The anti-hero protagonists are the dynamic constellations of punk rockers, greasers and local underdog gangsters (assisted by travelling armored warriors in a motorized chariot) that have to put their infighting on hold. They are opposing not only the regular harassment of the