Both wry travelogue and heartbreaking tale of love lost, The Japanese Sandman adapts a letter William S. Burroughs wrote to Allen Ginsberg in 1953. Told in Burroughs' caustically funny voice, cocaine snorting in Panama and post-prom handjobs in 1931 St. Louis dissolve into a meditation on memory and loss. Actor/performance artist John Fleck leads a stand-out cast through Burroughs' recounting of scoring opiates, whores and boys in Panama and, in the letter's P.S., a love affair with Billy Brandshinkel in the St Louis of his youth. Imperial Teen's Roddy Bottum provides the lively and compelling score.
Edward Buhr 2007 12 min. USA
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