Strange indeed. Shion Sono's bizarre STRANGE CIRCUS focuses on whether or not the repulsive subject matter of a woman's novel is in fact an autobiograph of her past or mere fantasy warping her sense of reality..seeping into everyday life she begins having a hard time dictating fiction from reality. Masumi Miyazaki is Sono's figurepoint. Rie Kuwana is a twelve year old girl sexually molested by her monstrous school principal father, often forced into a cello case with a peep hole so she must watch her parents making passionate love. Even though Kuwana(as Mitsuko) and her father are found by mother Sayuri(Miyazaki), nothing derives from it! Sayuri doesn't even respond after finding her husband and daughter in bed together! Instead, Sayuri begins to compete with her daughter for the father's love! Sayuri begins beating Mitsuko when papa is away. When Mitsuko defends herself over a missing earing, the result Sayuri falling down a flight of steps, the movie eventually shifts to novelist Taeko(also Miyazaki)and her assistant Yûji(Issei Ishida), who tends to her every need and whim. Yûji is aloof and practically zombie-like in his devotion to Taeko and ability to withstand insults in regards to his lack of a libido. Yûji may very well be hiding a secret, revealed without our knowledge to a group of body modification addicts. While directed with assured and mad skill by the director, I have to admit that I hated every minute of this movie because of its sickening subject matter. I could barely keep watching as the opening of the film completely places us into the story of a little girl and her abuse at the hands of a beastly father. And this bastard's sexual activities in front of her, not to mention, the mother who doesn't get her daughter out of this environment when the goings good. Thank goodness the director doesn't show explicit activity between father and daughter, opting to use a creative psychological method(the daughter narratively comments that she and her mother are the same, one, and so actress Miyazaki instead takes her place as the woman made love to)to get out of it. There's still plenty of sex, startlingly soft-core, but the little girl's abuse is implied which is a relief. That said, the director accomplished what he set out to obviously do, hit the viewer between the eyes and never let go. Whether or not you have a tolerance for the material and its characters will determine if you like STRANGE CIRCUS or not. Sono successfully carries us right into novelist Taeko's madness right until the very end. I can't deny this movie's power, but I don't have to like what I see, either.
Review of Strange Circus
