Tag Archives: Rape

CAPSULE: LOVE & CRIME (1969)

Meiji · Taishô · Shôwa: Ryôki onna hanzai-shi

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Rika Fujie, Yukie Kagawa, Yoshio Kodaira, Teruko Yumi

PLOT: His wife’s suicide inspires a mortician to consider four famous Japanese crimes of passion.

Still from love and crime (1969)

COMMENTS: The fact that Love & Crime begins with a gory autopsy of an attractive nude woman should let you know where it’s coming from. Even more perversely, said autopsy is performed by the decedent’s husband—shouldn’t the morgue have a rule against that?—and he’s not as visibly torn up about it as you might assume. The verdict is suicide, complicated by the fact that another man’s semen was found in the body.

Instead of  a) mourning or b) launching an investigation into his dead wife’s private life, the doctor instead opts to c) travel around Japan and interview people associated with infamous recent crimes of passion, in hopes of gaining insight into his wife’s psychological state (?) These consist of the noirish story of a seductress in a love quadrangle who directly and indirectly murders to gain possession of an inn, the case of Sada Abe (who cut off her lover’s penis and whose story would later form the basis for‘s In the Realm of the Senses), a serial killer rapist, and a woman who becomes a killer after her husband develops leprosy.

These case studies are all told as flashbacks, and each of the flashbacks themselves consistently include at least one more flashback. This confusing structure can make the stories difficult to follow, especially for modern Western viewers who aren’t the least bit familiar with the true crime inspirations. (At least one reviewer didn’t realize the beheaded woman and the leper’s wife were the same story, and it’s not hard to see how the confusion arises.) Adding to the disjointed feel, the third story—that of the postwar rapist—is completely out of tone with the other two. It’s the only one in black and white and the only one where a male killer is the chief subject. And while the previous two stories ranged from naughty to gruesome, this one is brutally unpleasant and unrewarding. Unlike the more story-based segments that came before, it’s essentially a series of repeated rape/killing re-enactments, with the perp using exactly the same m.o. each time. Why was this segment even included in the doctor’s purported search to find the root causes of female crime? In a classic bit of patriarchal logic, our doctor wonders, “Did the evil that lives within all women cry out to him? Is it women’s bodies that drive men to madness? Or rather, is it women themselves that they drive mad?” Huh?

The wraparound story is terrible, a shameless and poorly-though-out pretext for introducing scenes of sex and violence. But Ishii nevertheless proves a talented stylist. The camerawork is superior. Scenes are thoughtfully framed and staged. There are numerous artistic closeups. At trial, Sada Abe recounts her love affair and as she becomes absorbed in her memories, the background spectators fade into shadow and the camera zooms in on her schoolgirl-prim, spotlit face. The score, which utilizes what sounds like footsteps echoing down a hallway and other atmospheric noises as percussive effects, is impressive. These sleazy misogynist melodramas don’t deserve the cinematic style Ishii expends on them. Fortunately, the prolific director would find material worthier of his talents with his next two projects, the adaptation Horrors of Malformed Men and the supernatural samurai film Blind Woman’s Curse.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an entertaining mix of sleazy exploitation and arthouse-style direction that, if light on the social commentary you might expect, delivers a solid mix of lurid thrills and strong production values.”–Ian Jane, Rock! Shock! Pop! (Blu-ray)

Love And Crime [Blu-ray]
  • Director Teruo Ishii delivers four dramatized tales of real-life crimes of passion involving women across the ages in this grotesque anthology.

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HANZO THE RAZOR: SWORD OF JUSTICE (1972)

Goyôkiba

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DIRECTED BY: Kenji Mishumi

FEATURING: Shintarō Katsu, Yukiji Asaoka, Mari Atsumi, Ko Nishimura

PLOT: In Tokugawa-era Japan, a cop is willing to step outside the law to take down some of the most nefarious criminals in the realm, using his unique brand of interrogation and enforcement to get at the truth.

Still from hanzo the Razor: Sword of Justice (1972)

COMMENTS: “Dirty Harry” Callahan. John Shaft. “Popeye” Doyle. They all hit screens within months of each other during the year of the loose-cannon cop, a new archetype in law enforcement that arose out of the ashes of both the peace-and-love 60s and the Hays Production Code. It would be entirely appropriate to welcome Hanzo “the Razor” into these ranks. He’s a lawman who doesn’t play by the rules. He’s the one honest man in a corrupt world, and he doesn’t care who he pisses off, even his own bosses. Women love him, men fear him. And most importantly, as he walks the streets of Edo, he’s accompanied by a kickin’ funk soundtrack. (Kunihiko Murai’s score would be perfectly at home on the streets of Harlem.) Sure, his adventures might be taking place 200-300 years in the past, but a lawman who doesn’t let the law get in his way is timeless.

It’s entertaining to watch how closely the film applies the conventions of the 70s rogue cop to this hard-bitten samurai. He talks back to his superiors, who repeatedly remind him how close he is to getting himself kicked off the force. He has a group of ex-cons he employs to help him gather information and plot against his opponents. He even has a solitary lifestyle, with a small home bereft of creature comforts, and a series of elaborate booby traps to foil would-be assassins. In a world of venal authorities who cling to their power and advantage, Hanzo seems like the faultless icon of righteousness we all need.

Of course, such a perfect hero does suck some of the suspense out of his adventures. Hanzo is presented as the epitome of manly rectitude. Is he strong? Of course, as evidenced by the trail of bodies he leaves behind after being confronted by small militias. Is he honest? As honest as they come, such as when he refuses to sign the basic oath of allegiance to the police force because he won’t engage in the hypocrisy of his peers. And most important of all: Does he have an enormous penis? I’m surprised you even feel the need to ask.

Not only is that last one not a joke, but it’s the ridiculous-yet-troubling foundation of his entire strategy of policing. Hanzo’s manhood is so sizeable, he has a specially carved platform to hold it, which he needs because he performs a daily regimen to toughen it up that includes beating it with a stick and plunging it into a bag of uncooked rice. He does this because it’s actually the most productive weapon in his arsenal, which he uses to persuade recalcitrant women to give up crucial information on the whereabouts and connections of lawbreaking men. And how does he accomplish this? He kidnaps them and rapes them, impaling them upon his great endowment until – without exception – they are so overcome with pleasure that they will gladly share anything he might care to know. He even has a tried-and-true method of stripping the women down, cinching them up in a fishing net, lowering them onto his linden Johnson, and setting them in motion like a spinning top to reach unthinkable levels of ecstasy while he looks on impassively. His mighty truncheon does the job every time, as big and reliable as Harry Callahan’s .44 Magnum. “Sword of Justice” turns out to be a pun.

Two elements define Hanzo the Razor. On the one hand, casting a historic Japanese warrior as a badass cop delivers a terrific charge. It’s gratifying to see smug, weaselly white-collar crooks get their comeuppance in any era, and Hanzo is a virile, if somewhat tubby, man of the people, like a Japanese Joe Don Baker. When he goes strutting down a dusty road accompanied by a blaring saxophone, tootling organ, and pulsing bassline, it’s genuinely thrilling. At the film’s end, when Hanzo looks out over a map of the entire country and surveys a land filled with crime and corruption that only he can tame, it’s visually spectacular.

But then there’s that other element, Hanzo’s key crime-fighting tool. If any film can be said to be a product of its time, it’s this one; its prehistoric notion that there’s nothing wrong with women that a good rogering won’t solve is almost impressively ugly. The idea that it’s all okay because it helps him get the bad guys, and the women get supreme sexual satisfaction is, to be blunt, gross. It says something about the film that, if you have any reservations about the way The Razor conducts himself, it seeks to cleanse his spirit in your minds in the final minutes by showing the softer side of Hanzo—he kindly assists a dying man by delivering the instantaneous death that the law forbids. Yes, we’re supposed to balance out the rape with assisted suicide. Grand.

There were diminishing returns to those loose-cannon cops. Once you’d seen them do their thing, any future adventures had little to promise but more of the same. That seems to be true for Hanzo, as well. Katsu played Hanzo in two sequels (still a far cry from his two dozen appearances as blind swordsman Zatoichi), with rape-as-investigative-technique a central part of his toolkit throughout. There’s no denying that the well-endowed detective makes a splash in his first outing. But given how he conducts himself, it’s probably best that he turn in his badge.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

Hanzo the Razor:  Sword of Justice contains some jaw-dropping stuff early on.  However, the fun sort of dries up in the third act as the plot begins to meander and the weirdness starts to subside.” – Mitch Lovell, The Video Vacuum

(This movie was nominated for review by Cabra. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)         

CAPSULE: MEMENTO MORI (2018)

AKA Deadly Lust

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DIRECTED BY: Michaël Vermaercke

FEATURING: Charlotte De Wulf, Felix Meyer, Karlien Van Cutsem, Aaron Roggeman, Bram Verrecas

PLOT: Fleur lies in a hospital bed recalling her splintered memories of a drunken revelry as she attempts to get a grip on her trauma.

Still from Memento Mori (2018)

COMMENTS: The clunky phrase “frenetic incoherence” is the best one that springs to mind to describe this feature debut from Michaël Vermaercke. Whether this frenetic incoherence results from accident or by design is a question only briefly worth pondering, however, because on the whole, with some caveats, this thing works. Memento Mori is jumpy, unreliably told, and a bit macabre—not unlike the literal translation of the title, “remember that you must die.” Vermaercke obviously has a particular story he wants to tell with this film, and whether you like that story (and style) or not, I’m inclined to believe he succeeded in so doing.

Skittering between past and present (and again within skitterings), we piece together a horrible evening alongside Fleur, the tragic protagonist. Jules, her boyfriend of over a year, is desperate to have sex with her, and it seems to be agreed that they would try (again) at a big blow out held for Jules’ birthday. Among the attending crew of underage drinkers is Jules’ sketchy buddy Alex, who also lusts after Fleur. Alex’s girlfriend Valerie gamefuly ignores her fellow’s roaming eye—up to a point. Laying down the tracks that night, and possibly dosing the partiers, is “DJ Wouten,” a macho toughie with a deep-seated fear. As the music blasts and the kids slam back impressive quantities of liquor, a Death-like figure increasingly looms in the corner of Fleur’s eye.

On a smaller scale, Vermaerke pursues an atmosphere similar to Climax, which was made around the same time. Among the odd cuts and close-ups is the devouring of a rather plain looking cake, and while other elements are in the mix (I mention, once again, the staggering quantities of booze), it is only after this confection-cramming that the story slips from shaky to downright difficult to follow. Alongside Noé-style noodlings, I detected traces of in the form of the shrouded figure delivering comeuppance to various revelers. Eventually this looming form (seen only by Fleur) removes its masque, and…

Eh, I dunno. Memento Mori is heavy without feeling impactful, featuring characters who feel realistic without invoking much sympathy. Even Fleur, suffering from something psychological before the whole party nonsense, is too withdrawn to latch on to. I lament her fate, and commend her survival, but it may have been better to place a crack on her surface to let the audience in. The film’s grisliness leaves a mental mark, but the surrounding chaos is too tame for you to get lost in the intended nightmare. If Vermaerke tilts further into psychosis-on-celluloid, however, we’ll have a promising light to follow into the darkness.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

Memento Mori ist ein kurzer, schneller, farbintensiver Trip in die jugendliche Psyche seiner Protagonisten. Dabei verschmelzen Realität und Illusion, Traum und Wirklichkeit. Zwar nicht frei von Schwächen, aber spannend inszeniert.” -Stephan Lydike, Years of Terror (contemporaneous)

(Translation: “Memento Mori is a short, fast, colorful trip into the youthful psyche of its protagonists. Reality and illusion, dream and reality merge. Not free of weaknesses, but staged in an exciting way.”)

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: BLOOD FOR DRACULA (1974)

AKA Andy Warhol’s Blood for Dracula

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DIRECTED BY: Paul Morrissey

FEATURING: Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Maxime McKendry

PLOT: Count Dracula is dying for want of a virgin’s blood, and so sallies forth to Italy in an attempt to take advantage of its selection of religious-minded young women.

Still from Blood for Dracula (1974)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: A treatise on class struggle and it’s a softcore Eurotrash vampire gore movie? Thank you kindly, Misters Morrissey and Warhol.

COMMENTS: Among many questions raised by Blood for Dracula are: what is to be done with the idle aristocracy now that it has served its purpose? Did it serve a purpose in the first place? What is a mid-’70s New York City tough guy doing as a handyman on a decayed Italian estate? And, what year is this movie set in, anyway? Paul Morrissey has a vision, I am certain, and it was put to screen in soothing verdigris, soft yellows, and spurts of crimson. The variegated colors emphasize the manifold oddities unspooling over the delicious palette, with performances one might politely describe as “eccentric” bringing to life the director’s singular vision of the vampire myth.

The opening shot unveils the chromatic motif as the camera lingers on Count Dracula (Udo Kier), forlornly applying makeup. His vampirehood is revealed in the mirror in front of him—a mirror devoid of reflection. This ailing man is in need of virgin blood to continue on, and so his manic servant has hatched a plan of questionable merit. Dracula wishes to die, it seems, but is convinced instead to shuffle into a car and trundle off to the Italian countryside. There, he hopes to find a virgin’s blood to rejuvenate him—e’er he dies, forever.

Udo Kier’s performance as the sickly Count is a standout among a number of unlikely choices. His two long stretches of vomiting impure blood, as well as his line delivery (which I suspect stem partly from an imperfect grip on the language), lay the groundwork for Nicolas Cage‘s own nuanced performance in Vampire’s Kiss. The patriarch of the Italian estate is a jolly old soul with a love for gambling matched only by his love for language (“Dracula? Drah-cule-ah. I like it!”). The lone servant on the grounds, Mario, is perhaps the only card-carrying member of the Communist party for miles around—at least I presume he’s card-carrying; what dialogue he has that doesn’t concern the overthrow of the aristos is typically, and unsettlingly, rape-y. And if you like sister-with-sister action, you’re in luck: this “art-house” rollick has got you covered.

Yes, yes: this is a sexploitation feature alternating titillation with shlock violence (by the end, I was reminded of the infamous Black Knight), and I have no right to expect haut cinéma. But the little touches, heavy-handed though some were, are evidence that Morrissey is a dab hand at capturing compelling visuals. And even in his moments of regurgitative bombast, there is a dancer’s alacrity to Kier’s performance, showing there is a grim, lively past to this melancholy invalid. Maxime McKendry (in her sole film appearance) exudes a beautiful subtlety as an obviously English noblewoman filtered through an incongruous Italian accent. Come to this film with no demands other than for angst and spectacle, and you will not leave disappointed. If you come demanding logic and internal consistency, then you should perhaps hone your title-reading skills.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s a strange film—sometimes a beautiful one—but it’s also the textbook definition of ‘not for everyone.'”–Ken Hanke, Mountain XPress

CAPSULE: BLOODY ORANGES (2021)

Oranges Sanguines

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Bloody Oranges is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

DIRECTED BY: Jean-Christophe Meurisse

FEATURING: Alexandre Steiger, Christophe Paou, Lillith Grasmug, Olivier Saladin, Fred Blin

PLOT: An elderly French couple enters a dance contest hoping to ease their debts, while a scandal-ridden politician schemes to rehabilitate his image, and a 16-year old girl hopes to lose her virginity.

Still from Bloody Oranges (2021)

COMMENTS: If you like movies about French pension reform with a side of torture porn, you’ll dig Bloody Oranges. There are lots of discussions of the French pension system (which, we learn, constitutes 13.5% of the annual budget) and the younger generation’s resentment towards funding it. Pension complaints are pillow talk, getting rid of pension fraud among the elderly is the centerpiece of a fiscal cabinet meeting, and pension reform is the subjet de tous les jours on ambient TV news broadcasts. Olivier and Laurence are deep in debt and their combined monthly checks can’t cover their expenses, so they’re hoping to win a rock n’ roll dance contest that would net them an SUV which they could resell and possibly cut their debts in half.

But perhaps the modern French have deeper problems than the pension system. In almost the dead middle of the film we get an epigram from Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci that ends with the line: “Now is the time of monsters.” And this is when the movie, which had been an ensemble comedy dry as a glass of Merlot, suddenly takes a turn for the bloody. The change in tone is jarring and won’t work for many, but you do have to say one thing: le patriarcat gets (by which I mean loses) theirs at the end.

Writer/director Jean-Christophe Meurisse has fashioned a well-written, if not necessarily pleasant or tonally coherent, third feature. Although the situations get a bit bizarre, the characters are generally believable. Much of the dialogue is delivered through complicated discussions full of counterpoint: the dance jury argues spiritedly about the role of diversity in the selection process, a family birthday party is full of subtle recriminations and resentments. Individual scenes are well-crafted: a lover takes little post-coital digs at her partner’s slight build, microagressive but delivered with such sweetness that taking offense would appear as a gauche overreaction; in another amusing incident, a gynecologist gives advice to a virgin (I like to believe all French gynecologists flippantly explain hand job techniques to their inexperienced teenage patients).

But the movie’s central shock scene, while perhaps cathartic, reveals none of the careful control or wit Meurisse displays throughout the rest of the movie. It makes narrative sense, sure, but its brutal over-explicitness makes it a mood-killer. Instead of sweet orange flesh, with are left with bitter pith.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a film with bizarre events strung up together with not real interest and barely any joy at all is what is presented here and unless one wants to watch something that is just blandly negative, this is not a film many will like watching.”–Emillee Black, Cinema Crazed (festival screening)