Food Reviews

Desu pawuda (1986)

Bizarre and Disjointed

[8/10 · 1 November 2002]

This film is hyped as being in the same sub-genus of film as Tsukamoto's 'Tetsuo' or Shozin Fukui's '964 Pinocchio.' It is, however not as focussed or crafted as either of those films. Still, it warrants a degree of attention.

The story, as I understand it: Three conspirators steal a secret android. In their warehouse hideout, the android secretes a reality-altering substance, which casts them into a frightening nether-world of interconnected subjectivity.

Meanwhile, in the real world, workers enter the warehouse, only to find that the occupants within have mutated into a huge, protoplasmic organism.

Some aspects of this film are more successful than others. The protoplasm being is great, it reminds me of some kind of Kroft-type Saturday morning special effect creature gone really, really wrong. On the other hand an extended montage of stills to ironically loungy music badly overstays it's welcome.

Still, it all seems in good fun; during one of the hallucination sequences, the scientist who designed the android is revealed in a bizarre music video sequence---as a singer for an 80s hair-band.

Rubber's Lover (1996)

Psychic bloodbath

[9/10 · 28 February 2002]

This does for corporate research science what 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' does for inbred hillbillies. It is a film about psychic warfare that makes David Cronenberg's 'Scanners' seem ineffectual. Tho I don't like Rubber's Lover as much as Fukui's other feature, '964 Pinocchio,' it is certainly remarkable. What makes this film chilling to the bone is not the strange technology depicted or the spooky black & white cinematography or the creepy narrative ambiguities, tho this all adds. It is the screaming, hysterical, overblown performances by the actors which really gives the impression of terrible violence. Tho there is a decent amount of physical splatter in this film, the real gore is psychological. Try this film. you'll feel like a rhesus monkey in a head trauma experiment, and you'll like it!

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996)

Strange, Bent and Exciting

[15 March 2000]

(possible minor spoilers ahead)

I have only watched this complex series once, so there are things that I'm probably missing, or that I do not entirely get.

That said, I'll state that 'Evangelion' is one of the most unusual and unexpected bendings of a genre series since Patrick McGoohan subverted a cold war spy drama into surrealist allegory with 'The Prisoner.'

'Evangelion' begins as an animated show about kids piloting giant mechanical robots against space invaders. It ends with intense, personal psychodrama, more comparable to Bergman or Tarkovsky than to anything in the sci-fi animation world.

There are many clues along the way that this series is not what it seems.

The space enemy, (the 'Angels,') rather than being revealed as some alien culture, remain mysterious and almost subjectively mythological. As the series progresses, the morphologies of the Angels change, until they appear as purely abstract shapes which descend to earth.

The characters are realistic to the point where it is painful to watch. They menstruate, masturbate, and have sad pasts and closet skeletons. The team who manages NERV are like a horribly dysfunctional family. There is intense emotional brutality at points.

A strange adolescent sexuality also pervades the whole story, as if we see the situation through the eyes of the fourteen year old pilots.

The final, semi-telepathic 'instrumentality' sequence of the last two episodes creates great controversy, (just as the final episode of McGoohan's 'Prisoner' did,) but I think it is a great masterstroke. All along this story was about much more than just giant robots fighting.

Key the Metal Idol (1994–1997)

Can't stop watching it

[10/10 · 14 February 2000]

I rented the first tape in this series out of an idle interest in investigating anime. I got immediately addicted to it. From my limited perspective 'Key the Metal Idol' is a strange hybrid, like Shozin Fukui's '964 Pinocchio' meets 'Sailor Moon.'

Enjoyably weird characters abound in this fun narrative. The heavies are a tad one dimensional (for the most part uninspired corporate techno-sleazebags,) but that barely detracts.

None of these characters is more odd than Key herself, whose frailty, clumpy hair, monomaniacal autism, mystical experiences and huge Keane-eyes propel the story. With Key, the makers of this piece do an amazing and subtle thing: they make a character with complete flatness of affect seem somehow very sympathetic. You want to take her home and let her sleep on your couch & eat from your refrigerator for a few weeks.

Remarkably compelling episode-to-episode construction also keeps this series moving. The story design is tightly controlled, and it functions like the old 'Twin Peaks' in this manner. If Hollywood could produce live-action programming a third as interesting I'd go back to watching TV.

The visual design, animation and editing are all great. It is so accelerated and complex that repeat viewings are basically necessary. The title sequence alone is a brilliant piece of work.

As it stands, I have yet to see the last two installments of this series, but I can certainly vouch for the quality of the first thirteen.

964 Pinocchio (1991)

Very kinetic, dark humored science fiction

[10/10 · 11 January 2000]

This is one of my favorite films. It seems to deal with a society in which people have been made into commodities, and it focuses on principal characters who have become discarded.

Rather than take a heavy handed or moralistic stance, Shozin Fukui brings a strangely restrained humor and an extreme, hysterical weirdness to the story. Along with Shinya Tsukamoto's 'Tetsuo' it is one of the classics of Japanese mutation film. (It is said that Fukui actually worked on 'Tetsuo.')

The cinematography is amazing, ranging from ponderous and Tarkovsky-like to accelerated stop-motion.

The performers are wonderful and likeable. Hage Suzuki is like a spastic butoh performer having a constant seizure. Onn-Chan's amazing face seems to have been genetically grown for the specific purpose of being viewed by wide-angle lenses. (Where did these people come from and why is it hard to find any information on them?!)

As an added bonus, this film has what has been touted as the most prolonged vomiting sequence in cinema history.

Enjeru dasuto (1994)

Stylish

[11 October 1999]

Angel Dust is engagingly stylish and has some really cool concepts even though it tends toward tedium in some places.

This film is worthwhile. Encompassing a Scientology-like brainwashing/deprogramming treadmill, some haunting urban portraiture, a really hot Scully-like criminal psychologist and details of her personal life with an androgyne husband, Angel Dust covers a lot of interesting ground, though it bogs down now and again. The cinematography is mostly gorgeous, but tends to detour into annoying visual noodling (an extended sequence of images flashing from a slide projector in particular put me off.)

A question for Japanese freak cinema enthusiasts: I know that cult actor Tomoro Toguchi does a small, subtle, slapstick cameo in Angel Dust (the guy in a uniform carrying a heavy potted plant up a flight of stairs,) but who plays the smugly pious cult leader? He's only on screen for about two seconds, but I thought I saw a very familiar face. (I saw it at a theater so I couldn't rewind, and only some of the credits were in English.)

Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)

This is one of my favorite films ever

[11 October 1999]

This film isn't just depraved and misanthropic, it's depraved and misanthropic with heart.

Despite it's grotesqueness, it depicts a fantasy of rebellion and transgression that I've loved for years. The urge to break free and destroy the confining objects and circumstances of our lives is within all of us. The potential joy of trashing and rendering inoperable our cars, the implements of our work, even our foodstuffs and houses lurks somewhere on a subconcious level, wether we are able to admit it to ourselves or not. Herzog has made an archetypal statement, very simply and unambiguously. The exhilaration of watching these laughing little people dismantle, bludgeon and set fire to their surroundings is immense

I find I have a weird empathy with the character Hombre, the small guy who happily follows the group and laughs while he watches all the destruction. He has a kind of humble nobility which is revealed at the beginning of the film when he refuses to talk to police.

Futsû saizu no kaijin (1986)

A Sketch for Tetsuo

[7 October 1999]

Fans of Tetsuo:the Iron Man will find this film of interest: it is basically the same story, only as a short, and in color. All of the same elements are there: The salaryman played by Tomoro Toguchi; Shinya Tsukamoto playing a nemesis who remotely induces a robotic woman to attack Salaryman in the subway; the interlude with the drill-penis; the combination of both characters into a larger, metal-encrusted monster at the end of the film. The soundtrack has a great song by Chu Ishikawa. This is an exciting film because of it's youthfulness; The budget is low, the pixilation effects are cool and the director in his acting role looks barely in his early twenties. The viewer feels the fun of making the film.

The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo (1987)

A very fun, weird film. I like it.

[5 September 1999]

I saw an untranslated copy of this film, so I'm certainly missing something of the story. But I really like it anyway. It seems to be about a young boy who has a lumpy metal pole that is growing out of his back. He finds some kind of apparatus that transports him to an ominous nether-world where he and a fierce woman with a book attached to her head fight some scary motorized vampire-thugs. Eventually he meets a heroic older guy who also has a pole growing out of his back--I think this guy might be sort of an idealized version of himself. Then he is transported back to his own world. This film has all the visual kicks of the first Tetsuo, but it's much more raw, and in color. It seems to have been produced on 16mm. It has a weird, fun, dorky innocence that the later Tetsuo films only vestigally had. It is very punk rock. I loved it... I wish I could see it shown on actual film, with English subtitles.

Possession (1981)

I Loved It

[10/10 · 29 April 1999]

I think that Possession is one of the most effective horror films ever made.

I've read mixed reactions to Possession. I think that this is because the writer/director intentionally introduces dozens of narrative ambiguities. There are many unanswered questions, and the viewer is placed in a position where she/he must become a creative participant by answering these questions for themselves. Audiences are by and large uncomfortable with this type of thing, but luckily I've seen a lot of experimental/unusual cinema, so I'm acclimated to it.

Isabelle Adjani is glorious in a dual role (which is a reversal of the Bunuel mindgame from 'That Obscure Object of Desire'--Instead of two actresses playing a single character, there is a single actress playing two characters.)

Adjani and Sam Neill's enacting of a horribly troubled marriage is spectacular. Heinz Bennet's distasteful character would give anyone the creeps. When Adjani is seen in the company of a terrible Lovecraftian monster, it's almost a relief after the awful domestic situations depicted earlier in the film. (I also appreciate how the monster is very tastefully seen only in fleeting segments.)

Everyone is right--Find the Japanese cut of this film. It has Japanese subtitles, but it is much more comprehensible with 40 more minutes of footage.