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List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ANTIPORNO (2016)

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The fifth installment of the Pete’s Perverted Pix series.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Mariko Tsutsui,

PLOT: A pair of actresses enact a sadomasochistic relationship within a film but switch roles when the cameras are off.

Still from Antiporno (2016)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The manic, scene-devouring energy of the motor-mouthed lead actress is at least enough to place this deconstruction of pink films and media celebrity culture out of the ordinary, but then we slide down a hyper-surreal rabbit hole between the actresses in character and the actresses out of character, and their dreams, hallucinations, flashbacks, re-shoots of scenes, and existential reality riddles.

COMMENTS: Animal lovers beware: when our main character, Kyoko (Tomite) first opens her eyes in the morning, it’s to the sight of a large lizard kept in a glass bottle, clearly now imprisoned in there after having grown too big to crawl out, entirely dependent on outside forces to keep it alive. If you’re thinking this “bird in a gilded cage” metaphor might apply to our protagonist: ding, you are correct. Kyoko is a celebrity porn star and “artist” in Japan, kept in a brightly-colored but sparsely furnished apartment, where her existence as a performative sex object under the stress of Japanese idol culture has driven her well past barking mad. Not only does she dance and caper while hallucinating her dead sister playing the piano, she screams, throws tantrums, barfs, skips like a schoolgirl, and prances like a ballerina—mostly while stark naked. Kyoko is soon visited by her personal servant, Noriko (Tsutsui), and Kyoto shifts into alpha-bitch mode. She is cruel and humiliating to Noriko, and her abuse takes on an increasingly fetishistic nature. Kyoko humiliates Noriko, forces her to crawl and bark like a dog, forces oral sex on her, and sticks in a good belt whipping. When fashion model photographer One Hundred (Fujiko) and her posse show up, they only join in Noriko’s torment.

Just when Noriko is getting gang-raped, a director yells “Cut!” Ha, gotcha! This was just a scene these actresses were filming, and though they keep the same names, their personalities switch. Noriko is now an insufferably egotistic and unhinged diva, and Kyoko is a nervous understudy who trembles and grovels submissively. Yes, it’s one of those kinda movies. As subsequent scenes are filmed, the two lead actresses’  personalities each ramp up the sadism when it’s their turn on top, in a vicious game of humiliation tag. In between, we get treated to a snarling satire of the porn/film industry, as even the director treats Kyoko like a slave and the whole film crew pressures Kyoto to submit. I should add, all this is taking place in a few stylized sets given to bold primary colors and pop-art props, making for candy-sweet viewing.

If you think this movie is out of rug-pulls now that we have that movie-within-a-movie bit revealed, you’re mistaken. We slide back

Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ANTIPORNO (2016) →
Canonically Weird (The List)

74. VISITOR Q [Bijitâ Q] (2001)

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“Some things are truly strange.”–Father from Visitor Q, preparing to commit an unnatural act

DIRECTED BY: Takashi Miike

FEATURING: Shungiku Uchida, Ken’ichi Endô, Kazushi Watanabe, Jun Mutô,

PLOT: Father is a television reporter who was publicly humiliated when he was sodomized on camera by a gang of punks, Mother turns tricks to pay for her heroin habit, teenage Daughter is a runaway prostitute, and Son beats his mom with a riding crop when he’s not being bullied by his schoolmates. One day, a strange man conks Father on the head with a rock and moves in to stay with the family. Thanks to his influence Mother and Father gain confidence in themselves, and the family is drawn together, as corpses pile up in their home.

Still from Visitor Q (2001)
BACKGROUND:

  • Visitor Q was made as part of the “Love Cinema” project, where six independent Japanese filmmakers made direct-to-video movies to explore the possibilities of the ne digital video format.
  • According to Miike the film was shot for a mere seven million yen (about $70,000) and completed in one week.
  • There are several times in the film where boom mics are visible.
  • Miike’s  plot owes much to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (1968), in which a mysterious, nameless visitor serially seduces members of a wealthy Italian family.
  • Besides acting, the multi-talented Shungicu Uchida (“Mother”) is also a manga artist, singer, and writer.
  • Visitor Q was one of two winners of the 2010 “reader’s choice” poll asking 366 Weird Movies’ readership to select one film that had been reviewed but passed over for inclusion on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies ever made.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: In a movie full of shock after shock, it’s the very last image, a scene of perverse family unity, that turns out to be the most affecting and haunting.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Visitor Q is a baffling parable of perversity.  What starts out as a depraved but unhappy family ends up as a homicidal and unified clan, thanks to the intervention of a mysterious, omnipotent stranger who cracks the father on the skull with a rock and teaches the mother to lactate. Along the way, Miike films the family graphically indulging in every act of sexual deviance he can think of, and even makes up some new ones.


Short clip from Visitor Q

COMMENTS:  Visitor Q is a confounding, bewildering movie, and not just because of the Continue reading 74. VISITOR Q [Bijitâ Q] (2001) →