The subject matter that drives the story gets most of the attention, and with good reason. This is not a movie for everyone. If you found "The Damned" (1969) or "The Devils" (1971) worthwhile, this might work for you. But my focus here will be the structure of this film, as it is really quite incredible and deserves praise.
"Strange Circus" is basically a series of stories within stories that reinforce what I take to be the "point" of the film: the disassociation, role reversals, compartmentalization and identity-confusion that result from sexual trauma. But it is more than that, as it also implicates the viewer in the whole business.
Perhaps the easiest way to watch this film and make sense of what is going on is to divide it into separate periods of time, which I will try to do without spoiling the film:
Time 1: The movie begins and ends with a lavish burlesque show (the "strange circus") in which someone (we don't know who until the end) is invited up on stage to be guillotined. The camera drags us (the audience) up to the stage with this person. We are implicated in what we are about to see.
Time 2: We meet "Mitsuko," "Sayuri" and "Goko," the monstrously dysfunctional family. The father ("Goko") is the primary monster, with the mother ("Sayuri") passively acquiescing in his deeds. Mitsuko is the child victim. Time 2 appears to end with Mitsuko both literally (wheelchair bound/mental problems) and figuratively broken.
Time 3: We meet a reclusive, wheelchair-bound novelist, "Taeko," who is finishing a novel. She lives in a home where the "front of the house" is an alter to quirky and idiosyncratic art, while the "back of the house" is an absolute crazy mess of litter and unfinished food. In the back of the house, we are shown a key object from Time 2 (a symbol of the compartmental nature of living with trauma). We also get occasional flashbacks to Time 2 that fill in further details on Mitsuko's life after the tragic events of that time. (Taeko's readers assume her novels are autobiographical, but nobody knows for certain.)
Separately in Time 3, Taeko's publisher assigns a young man, "Yuji,' as an understudy to help Taeko complete the novel. He is also instructed to learn as much as he can about who Taeko truly is. In part due to Yuji's "asexual" nature, Taeko trusts Yuji and even goes to the beach with him where they rent a motel room and take a day-nap, falling asleep in separate beds.
After waking and leaving the motel, Yuji undertakes a series of dramatic acts that force Taeko to confront her "true" past.
At this point, the film begins to work back and forth between Time 2 and Time 3 more frequently. From within Time 3, we are first brought back to the beach hotel episode, where Taeko wakes up from the nap (as if everything that happened after the beach motel has been a dream). Taeko and Yuji have an argument, but Taeko soon "wakes up" from this motel room episode to find herself back where we were left off in Time 3 (Yuji confronting Taeko about her true past). Time 3 ends with this last confrontation.
The movie then returns to Time 1 where a symbolic "final ending" is presented.
"Strange Circus" is basically a series of stories within stories that reinforce what I take to be the "point" of the film: the disassociation, role reversals, compartmentalization and identity-confusion that result from sexual trauma. But it is more than that, as it also implicates the viewer in the whole business.
Perhaps the easiest way to watch this film and make sense of what is going on is to divide it into separate periods of time, which I will try to do without spoiling the film:
Time 1: The movie begins and ends with a lavish burlesque show (the "strange circus") in which someone (we don't know who until the end) is invited up on stage to be guillotined. The camera drags us (the audience) up to the stage with this person. We are implicated in what we are about to see.
Time 2: We meet "Mitsuko," "Sayuri" and "Goko," the monstrously dysfunctional family. The father ("Goko") is the primary monster, with the mother ("Sayuri") passively acquiescing in his deeds. Mitsuko is the child victim. Time 2 appears to end with Mitsuko both literally (wheelchair bound/mental problems) and figuratively broken.
Time 3: We meet a reclusive, wheelchair-bound novelist, "Taeko," who is finishing a novel. She lives in a home where the "front of the house" is an alter to quirky and idiosyncratic art, while the "back of the house" is an absolute crazy mess of litter and unfinished food. In the back of the house, we are shown a key object from Time 2 (a symbol of the compartmental nature of living with trauma). We also get occasional flashbacks to Time 2 that fill in further details on Mitsuko's life after the tragic events of that time. (Taeko's readers assume her novels are autobiographical, but nobody knows for certain.)
Separately in Time 3, Taeko's publisher assigns a young man, "Yuji,' as an understudy to help Taeko complete the novel. He is also instructed to learn as much as he can about who Taeko truly is. In part due to Yuji's "asexual" nature, Taeko trusts Yuji and even goes to the beach with him where they rent a motel room and take a day-nap, falling asleep in separate beds.
After waking and leaving the motel, Yuji undertakes a series of dramatic acts that force Taeko to confront her "true" past.
At this point, the film begins to work back and forth between Time 2 and Time 3 more frequently. From within Time 3, we are first brought back to the beach hotel episode, where Taeko wakes up from the nap (as if everything that happened after the beach motel has been a dream). Taeko and Yuji have an argument, but Taeko soon "wakes up" from this motel room episode to find herself back where we were left off in Time 3 (Yuji confronting Taeko about her true past). Time 3 ends with this last confrontation.
The movie then returns to Time 1 where a symbolic "final ending" is presented.