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This
Japanese sub titled film currently playing at the IFC is
probably one of the most horrid off the wall films that
I have seen of late.
Not
billed as grotesque or horror, the early part of the
film provided a unique insight
into the modern day Japanese lifestyle of a business man
in Tokyo.
It
is quite slow moving for the first half, which does not
prepare the audiance
for the ending!!. The
director makes extensive use of 'time lapse'
editing and the film opens with the leading male
'Aoyama' mourning the death
of his wife whilst his child looks on...
Cut
to 7 yrs later and the now attractive looking son
telling the father
that he should get married again etc etc. During a post
work drink with
his best friend who works in the film business, he
mentions the fact that its
hard to get 'good' girls nowadays?..adding that
"Japan is fucked" His friend,
listening to his plight suggests organising an audition
for wanna
be female actors.
Aoyama
picks on one particualr girl,with whom he becomes
infatuated, much against the warnings from his film
industry friend. The
film really lifts off from there and goes into the hard
stuff of torture,
maiming, decapitation etc, etc
Up
to this point we get the odd scream from the fairer sex
in the audiance which promotes the odd matcho
giggle...similar to Jaws..then soon after male
audiance members start to look sideways at the curtains
and the artistic fire extinguisher in the corner.. in
fact anywhere but the screen.
Whether
you could regard the film as logical at this stage is
questionable,but
obviously the director and film festival freaks think
its brillantissimo.
At
this stage we have a serious exit of viewers from the
cinema, about a third left the IFC to the relative
safety of the foyer, both male and female
including my normally 'salt of the earth' friend from
Laois, who scampered
over the back row seats!...He came back in when an usher
laughingly told
him that it didnt get any worse.
And
the ending, well, the hero is actually Aoyama's son.
Quote of the film
"this wire is very good at cutting flesh and
bone" I
suppose its worth seeing so that u can talk about it as
a conversation stopper amongst friends.
We
adjourned to the Front Lounge to recover and contrasted
Panti with Asami :-) |
