Decorated with awards from Cannes and New York film festivals, “Right Place” is the story of an eccentric man’s struggle to find his “right place” in the world.
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Tag Archives: Japanese
BORDERLINE WEIRD: SUICIDE CLUB (2002)
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DIRECTED BY: Sion Sono
FEATURING: Ryo Ishibashi, Masatoshi Nagase, Saya Hagiwara
PLOT: A shocking mass suicide in a train station attracts the attention of the police and a curious hacker who may have found a link to the seemingly random act.
WHY IT MIGHT NAKE THE LIST: This exercise in the Japanese new school of shock horror does not have enough substance to be considered extremely weird. There are moments that light up the screen with an inspired energy that recalls the best horror-thrillers. Yet, like a Noh theater performance, Suicide Club chooses to keep actual events close to the chest, relying on long pauses and slow takes to create the mood. Noh theater has dancing and music to fill up the entire performance, though; Suicide Club languishes with scenes that are filled with empty silence and shots that mean nothing.
COMMENTS: Suicide Club is the odd story of one country’s affinity for self-termination, represented by a strange and tragic mass suicide in a train station. Why this happens is never explained in a way that leaves one satisfied, but such is the state of the high suicide rate in Japan, and, to be fair, to ask why is almost besides the point. The point seems to be the journey into the strange underbelly of Tokyo and the detectives who must investigate the suicides by journeying into that hoary netherworld.
Well, the detectives and their sole lead, the idiosyncratic hacker Miyoko– I’m sorry, “The Bat”– who has a strong fascination with the tragedy. This fascination drags her from the safety of her malicious computer activities to a world where secret messages are written in human skin and dropped off at hospitals and where J-Pop groups wield a heady authority over an unassuming generation. As she becomes wound up in this mystery that seems to go deeper than anyone could have imagined, a youth named Mitsuko also becomes involved when her boyfriend commits suicide. She too falls into the web of what is appearing more and more to be a sort of suicide club (how titular!) whose members might even be unaware of their membership. And the deeper she falls, the closer she comes to realizing that she might even be in this unfortunately named club…
But this is all told through the visual narrative, because dialogue is in extremely short supply in this mannered horror exercise. As is character development. Or much of anything, really. Suicide Club is a very visual film, told through a Morse code string of images that reads normal-normal-normal-weird! And when the images are strange or grotesque, the audience becomes intrigued and downright enthused. But during the slow mood-building scenes, the movie falters in the wake of the sterile, lifeless Tokyo Sono sets up. It surrounds and eclipses most moments of tension, replacing the anxiety with a vague sense of ennui that does not behoove a horror-thriller.
There are moments of inspired lunacy in Suicide Club that set it apart from the rest of the Japanese formalists, and if you can make it to the middle of the film where we meet the conspicuous character named Genesis, then your patience has truly paid its due diligence, because the film rolls along by then with images too weird and too delightful to spoil for you. And Suicide Club feels meticulously fabricated in its down time, where the details brim forth from a lack of any real action; seemingly trivial things like the posters hanging up in Mitsumo’s boyfriend’s room are very well designed and hold little clues to the secret waiting at the end. When it wants to be, Suicide Club has the potential to be a very good weird movie.
So give it a shot. Suicide Club is worth trying, even if you find it to be a failure. It’s a labyrinthine horror-thriller with a touch of mystery that will have you guessing, even if the mystery has no real bearing on what actually happens at the end. Sono delivers what might be one of the only minimalist conspiracy movies, and on that note alone, it’s worth a gander. Suicide Club is a valiant effort and a weird movie, just not often enough to make it something special.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
READER RECOMMENDATION: BIG MAN JAPAN [DAI NIHONJIN] (2007)
Reader review by Rob Steele [AKA Mofo Rising]
DIRECTED BY: Hitoshi Matsumoto
FEATURING: Hitoshi Matsumoto
PLOT: Not-so-lovable loser transforms into significantly larger loser to battle some of the weirdest monsters to ever threaten Japan.
WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: On a purely visual level, Big Man Japan has a bizarre aesthetic that nobody else would rightly consider. Beyond that, the film’s humor is often so subtle that you don’t realize what strange territory you’ve stumbled into until it ends up battling it out on the screen in its underwear. This film is just weird.
COMMENTS: Did you ever watch Mike Myers defend the male nudity in Austin Powers by claiming that the naked male form has been a comedic stereotype in British humor for years, but you still got the sense that he just enjoyed running around naked? Well, Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto has taken Myer’s original intent and literally writ it large for the big screen. Prepare yourself for a loving CGI rendition of the male form, with every stray hair delineated and a paunch that could kill.
Matsumoto doesn’t stop there. His film, Big Man Japan, is as loving a tribute to pure loser-dom as you could hope to film. His character is the none-too-bright heir to monster fighters in an alternate-reality Japan where giant monsters attack on a regular basis. Unfortunately, while his monster-battlin’ grandfather was considered a hero, he is now a national joke, fighting inexplicably ridiculous monsters for increasingly little ratings. (His show now only airs in the wee hours of the morning.) As if being a national joke was not enough, our current Big Man manages to fail every time he is called up to bat.
Big Man Japan is a slow burn of a film. If you are familiar with celebration of wrong-headed intentions Christopher Guest has been putting out for years, you should be comfortable here. The majority or the film focuses on interviews with our loser as he is subtly confronted with his abject shame in society. Luckily for us, every twenty minutes or so, he must fight against a bizarre menagerie of monsters in CGI battles that are, to say the very least, uncomfortable.
This is an odd film. But before you throw it out, stick around for the ending. I’m not going to give it away here, and I’m not even sure I could if I tried. Suffice to say, I laughed like a maniac, probably to the consternation of all my friends.
Big Man Japan is nothing else other than Big Man Japan. Before you venture in, I recommend you watch the preview. If it looks at all interesting to you (you’re a small crowd), watch it. You may be unpleasantly surprised. Or the opposite. No real way to predict your fate with this film. Suffice to say, don’t expect to get out unscathed.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
“Part character study, part media satire and, by its finale, altogether bizarre, ‘Big Man Japan’ plays a bit like a quieter, weirder version of ‘Hancock’… the most impressive special effect here is Mr. Matsumoto’s hilariously restrained performance, a tour de force of comedic concision in a movie bloated by increasingly surreal developments.”–Nathan Lee, The New York Times (contemporaneous)
57. GOZU (2003)
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AKA Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô: Gozu (full Japanese title)
“INDIEWIRE INTERVIEWER: Are there any themes or images you find too upsetting or disturbing to show?
MIIKE: Normal things.”
DIRECTED BY: Takashi Miike
FEATURING: Yûta Sone, Shô Aikawa, Kimika Yoshino
PLOT: Minami is a journeyman yakuza whose boss Ozaki is going insane, and who has been ordered by higher-ups to see to it that he is killed. Since Ozaki once saved his life, Minami is conflicted about the assignment; but fortunately, an accident seems to take care of the problem for him. That is, until the presumptive corpse disappears while he is stopped in a strange town outside of Nagoya, and Minami launches a desperate search for his boss that leads him into a surreal labyrinth of malleable identities.
BACKGROUND:
- Gozu was one of five movies the prolific Miike made in 2003.
- “Gozu” means cow’s head, and the full Japanese title translates literally as Grand Theatre of Perversion and Fear: Cow’s Head (sometimes translated as Yakuza Horror Theater).
- Like many of Miike’s films, Gozu was originally intended as a direct-to-video release. A successful Cannes screening got the movie noticed, and it was able to get wider theatrical distribution.
- Harumi Sone, who plays the small role of the Inkeepers Brother, is the father of star Yûta Sone, and the executive producer of the film. He brought the idea of casting his son in a yakuza film to Miike, though it’s reasonable to suspect he had a more traditional film in mind.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: In a film full of shocking imagery, the obscenely drooling cow-headed man who slowly approaches Minami to lick his face stands out.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Gozu may be the culmination of Miike’s “weird and perverted” phase, loaded with his particular fetishes and combining the two genres he works best in: horror and the yakuza (mobster) film. With its Eraserhead-like aura of personal alienation and fearsome psycho-sexual nightmares, bizarre identity shifts, and a cow-headed man as a mascot, Gozu‘s weirdness is never in doubt.
Japanese trailer for Gozu
COMMENTS: Sexual repression always makes a good base for a weird movie. Our libidos Continue reading 57. GOZU (2003)
PLEASE HELP, NON-AMERICAN FRIENDS: A LIST OF OBSURE, FOREIGN (TO US) FILMS
The Internet Movie Database is a wonderful and a terrible thing. Wonderful, because it allows you to create impressively thorough lists of potentially weird movies. Terrible, because it may tease you with the names of intriguing movies you may never be able to see.
Below is a list of dozens of highly-rated movies that have been tagged with “surrealism” or similar keywords, broken down by country. To my knowledge, none of these movies is currently available on DVD, and I suspect that several of them may never have been translated into English. Any information on these titles by people who are familiar with them would be of enormous value to us in deciding whether or not we should invest time in trying to track them down. So, my non-American friends, please have at it! If you leave a comment with some information on any of these titles, I’ll update the body of the text to reflect it. (Information supplied by readers is added in bold).
- Razón de mi vida, La (20??) [The Reason for My Life]. This showed up on the IMDB as a highly rated 2008 release a while back. Now, the link goes to a movie of the same name, but it has no rating and is listed as a 2010 release. OFFICIAL UPDATE: Per Kino Red: “completed in this month. Release soon (Buenos Aires, Paris and Tokyo). Trailer and teaser (in Spanish) in youtube: NOTE: The film is not based on the Eva Perón autobiography. The title of the film is ironic or parodic about the Eva Perón’s book.” I will add that the trailer looks very promising!
- Rosaura a las 10 (1958) [Rosaura at 10 o’clock]. Alon thinks it’s only borderline weird at best.
- Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964) [God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun] Per Alon: “interesting, beautifully filmed and edited, movie about the drama of the Brazilian dispossessed… but I wouldn’t consider it weird by any measure.”
- O Anjo Nasceu (1969) [The Angel Was Born]
- Terra em Transe. No English translation of the title. Per Alon, Entranced Land or Land in Anguish. Has read it’s more “daring” than Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol by the same director.
Per Alon: “…seems to be famous for its unconventional camerawork and editing. The film tells the story of two murderers, one of whom has mystic visions, and was regarded as quite gory for its time.”
Czech/Czechoslovakian
- Adéla jeste nevecerela (1978). Per LRobHubbard: translates to Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet. From the director of Lemonade Joe (which we do plan to review). “Spoofs the ‘Nick Carter’ detective stories, featuring Carter investigating strange disappearances, which involve a carnivorous plant, the ‘Adele’ of the title.” No Region 1 release. Worth seeing, but not necessarily weird.
- Akumulátor 1 (1994).
- Jak utopit doktora Mrácka aneb Konec vodniku v Cechách (1974) [How to Drown Dr. Mracek, the Lawyer]
- Kytice (2000) [Wild Flowers]
- Lepsie byt bohaty a zdravy ako chudobny a chory (1993) [It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill]
- Nejasná zpráva o konci sveta (1997) [An Ambiguous Report About the End of the World]
- Nevesta (1970).
- Pane, vy jste vdova! (1970) [You Are a Widow, Sir]
- Postav dom, zasad strom (1980) [Build a House, Plant a Tree]
- Sedím na konári a je mi dobre (1989). No English translation of the title. Probably never translated into English.
- Tajemství hradu v Karpatech (1981) [The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians]. Per LRobHubbard: from the director of and similar to Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet (above) but a pastiche/parody. The idea may be from a story by Jules Verne.
- Tisícrocná vcela (1983) [The Millennial Bee]
- Zítra vstanu a oparím se cajem (1977). No English translation of the title.
French
- La Cicatrice intérieure (1972). Written by and featuring glacial chanteuse Nico (best known here for her work with The Velvet Underground).
- La Dernière femme (1976) [The Last Woman]. Despite the presence of a young Gerard Depardieu, I am not sure this was ever translated into English for home video. Controversial on release due to its sexual content. Per Irene, not a weird film.
Greek
- Souvliste tous! Etsi tha paroume to kouradokastro (1981) [Barbecue them!]. A Greek correspondent tells me this is basically unknown even in Greece and no DVDs are available. It is on Google video, with no English subtitles.
- Capricci (1969). By Carmelo Bene.
- Don Giovanni (1970). Also by Carmelo Bene.
- Fantozzi (1975) and Il Secondo tragico Fantozzi (1976). These popular Italian comedies seem to have never been released in America. I gather Fantozzi is something like the Italian Monsieur Hulot?
- La Rabbia (2008). With Faye Dunaway and Franco Nero in the cast, I would assume this might see the light of day soon.
Indian
- Poi (2006).
- Den-en ni shisu (1974) [Pastoral Hide and Seek]
- Tokyo senso sengo hiwa (1970) [He Died After the War]
Mexican
- Pafnucio Santo (1977). Per Alon: “…seems promising… directed by Jodorowsky’s cinematographer… the trailer on YouTube is rather terse.”
Polish
- Ewa chce spac (1958). No English translation of the title. Per Irene Goncharova, “a mere comedy… I didn’t find it weird.”
- Jak daleko stad, jak blisko (1972) [How Far, How Near]
- Walkower (1965) [Walkover]. Per Irene Goncharova, “A Polish movie, just drama, nothing weird.”
Russian/Soviet
- Den vyborov (2007) [Election Day]. Per Irene Goranchova: “…absolute trash, a really BAD Russian movie. I sometimes laugh watching it. Bad, bad, bad! Nothing weird…”
- Posetitel muzeya (1989). [Visitor of a Museum]?
- Sobachye serdtse (1988). Literally, Heart of a Dog. Based on a Mikhail Bulgakov novel that was also adapted by the Italians into a film called Cuore di cane. Produced for television? Per Irene Goncharova: It was a television production, although there may also be another filmed version. “…a good movie, quite weird.”
- Zhena kerosinshchika (1988) [Kerosene Salesman’s Wife]? Per Irene Goncharova: hasn’t seen it, but looks weird from the description.
Spanish
- Amanece, que no es poco (1989). No English translation of the title. Per Alon, English translation may be Isn’t dawn enough? “…a masterpiece of surreal humour. You have a serious candidate for The List.”
- Don Juan Tenorio (1952). Alon thinks it’s unlikely to be weird, mentions that its notoriety may come from the fact that Salvador Dalí served as the costume designer.
In the interest of thoroughness, we’re potentially saving a spot on the List for all these movies, so any help as to whether they are must-sees or duds will be greatly appreciated!