Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Shinya Tsukamoto

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:34 / 27.03.06

Remember Shinya Tsukamoto? Before we all discovered Takashi Miike, remember Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tesuso II: Body Hammer? Remember Tokyo Fist?

After Tokyo Fist, Tsukamoto apparently "renounced violence"*. I've just watched Vital which was actually quite lovely- well, maybe "lovely"'s actually a bit of a stretch, but "sweet" would cover it, I reckon, though it is mired in the dark and unpleasant world of autopsies. I also bought A Snake Of June today, which I shall watch tomorrow.

So... The Tetsuos, Tokyo Fist, Vital, A Snake Of June... what are people's thoughts on the "king of tin-foil violence" (my phrase) grown up?

*I'm guessing that once you've done a "punching someone in the face" sequence from the fist's POV, and going a fair way through the skull, you'd be quite justified in saying "well, I've done the violence thing. Takashi Miike can take it from there. I'm gonna make different films now".

18:26 / 29.03.06

I've seen Tetsuo and A Snake of June, both really interesting, challenging films. The two films I've seen both take place in a really odd universe, even more askew from our world than Miike's stuff. I love the raw symbolism of the films, always drawing on archetypal images, with a lot of interesting phallic stuff going on. From a narrative standpoint, I was a bit confused by each of them, but I feel like they still succeed as really intense visual experiences.

23:37 / 03.04.06

Remember Shinya Tsukamoto? Before we all discovered Takashi Miike, remember Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tesuso II: Body Hammer? Remember Tokyo Fist?

Yesssssssssssssssssssss. I just not too long ago picked up a new copy of Tetsuo and saw A Snake of June, which has to be one of the prettiest movies I've seen in a while. Have Bullet Ballet and Hiruko the Goblin in Netflix queue. Tsukamoto is the man.

He's in Miike's Ichi the Killer, incidentally.

Mysterious Transfer Student

14:30 / 05.04.06

Tsukamoto is the man.

He certainly is. Fans of his may be interested in his lead role in Marebito, a low-budget horror flick directed by Takashi (Ju-on) Shimizu and scripted by the prolific anime & film screenwriter Chiaki J. Konaka. Tsukamoto plays an alienated TV cameraman obsessed with photographing the true nature of fear, who, inspired by myths of the Hollow Earth and its inhabitants, ventures into caverns deep beneath Tokyo and discovers a mute, vampiric girl whom he frees from her prison and installs in his apartment. Shot in eight days or so, crammed full of Lovecraftian unnameable terror and extremely thought-provoking, both for its original chaining-together of Amazing Stories pulp mythology with Japanese subterranean folklore and for Tsukamoto's portrayal of the cameraman's mental disintegration as he attempts to care for and feed the girl. It's available on R1 DVD... I recommend it.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:02 / 12.04.06

Got round to watching all my Tsukamoto stash...

A Snake Of June is truly remarkable. What could easily be misogynistic expolitative shit, based purely on a precis of the story, becomes something beautiful and (from my reading) stridently feminist, or at least the female character is the most empowered. Character-wise, it's basically the triangle from Tokyo Fist looked at through a different lens- visually it's stunning, with Tetsuo-esque dream sequences and wonderful use of rain and water. Must watch it again, but my initial impression is that it's a fucking masterpiece.

Vital is gentler, despite the subject matter- reminds me of later Cronenberg in many ways (the sleevenotes reference Ballard, which is also a pretty good fit). It's actually quite sweet for a movie about dissection (and it's about dissection on more levels that just the physical). A fairly "straight" movei, visually- he does wonderful things with colours, but there's none of the Tetsuo madness. Another wonderful film.

Hiruko the Goblin is just silly. But by silly I mean Evil Dead or Bad Taste silly (one of his first films, so I guess the parallel holds up there too). It's great fun, with a ludicrous storyline, comedy characters and some truly amazing monster effects. After-the-pub-monster-movie silly. It's ace. Not as accomplished as his other stuff, it's nonetheless worth checking out.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:21 / 01.09.07

I watched Shimizu's "Marebito" the other night, and it was one of those movies where... well, while I was watching it, I was utterly cynical. "This is supposed to be disturbing? For fuck's sake..."... Um... within about an hour of it ending, and ever since, I can't get it out of my head. FUCK, it's amazing. And yes, TRULY fucked. And VERY disturbing.

I also watched "Haze" last night, but I think I was too drunk to actually get it... I don't even remember how it finished. And it's only 45 minutes long.

But yeah, Marebito is fucking AWESOME. And nasty.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:22 / 01.09.07

(according to the sleeve notes, Shimizu is a big Tsukamoto fan, which is why he cast him...)

02:23 / 02.09.07

Marebito, truly fucked? Yes, absolutely.

But, m'self, I'd like to know why it's so goddam'd engaging. Because I really can't figure it.

They switch the theme of the horror movie every fifteen minutes, as clear as I can tell.
First it's a fellow obsessed with the extremity of human consciousness, then he's exploring the ghost-ridden urban underground, then there's a pulp/lovecraft hollow earth confronting him, then he's the frustrated explorer/scientist going mad with his failures, then he's the tragic, insane loner giving in to his manias then there's

FUCK! HOW MANY PERMUTATIONS ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE THIS MOVIE THROUGH?!?!?

GRAGHHHH!

Ahem.

As much as I enjoyed it in spite of my lack of understanding, I would like to understand what you others' understanding of the overall story was.

If there was any, that is.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:21 / 02.09.07

Okay, my reading was...

SPOILERS

The reductive one. He has either gone, or is trying to drive himself, insane, and because of this murders his wife and abuses his daughter.

The two flaws in this reading I can see are the ending (which can be explained by him being nuts) and the fact that the police never show up at his house to ask if he's seen the daughter, or even after his (presumably ex-) wife is brutally murdered.

The film does leave a lot ambiguous, that's for sure.

Next time I watch it I'll probably think something entirely different.