The Cinematheque has a pretty fantastic program of Japanese horror starting this weekend. If you've never seen Shinya Tsukamoto's first Tetsuo film, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, from 1989, it is the unhinged masterpiece of independent Japanese filmmaking, simultaneously critiquing and reveling in the agony and spectacle of male bodies turning into machines and weapons, just THRUMMING with visual energy and passion. To approximate the experience it offers, you could go to a scrapyard, take several incredibly powerful drugs that you have never tried before - maybe a cocktail of meth, bath salts, and PCP, with a chaser of tequila - put on the most aggressive industrial music you can find (at deafeningly loud volumes, of course), and - once you are so out of your gourd you have no idea what you are doing - throw yourself into the rustiest, nastiest, most dangerous-looking pile of metal and wires you can find and try to fuck it. Or better still, if you really want to get that Tsukamoto feeling, try to BECOME it: jam those wires into your flesh! Jam iron rods into your arms and legs to make them stronger! Make your body into a horrifying weapon! BE THE METAL SCRAP THAT YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD!
...But note that before doing any of that, it is much, much easier to just watch this movie. Have you ever wanted to see a man's penis change into a giant drill? Here's your chance.
What, did you think I was being figurative?
Tsukamoto has created a fascinating and rich body of work since, but this is, maybe a few shorts aside, where it all starts. If you've missed it, here's a rare chance to see Tetsuo on the screen. There is also a fantastic Arrow box set of most of Tsukamoto's major works, including this. It is out of stock in some places - those of you who use Amazon.ca can still find it at a reasonable price, though I see some people on eBay (of course) are already charging $300 or so for it. It is no longer sold as a unified box on the Arrow or Diabolik websites, so if that's what you are coveting, act soon (note: Tsukamoto's later cinema, while also often quite disturbing and provocative, never quite reaches the fever pitch of insanity of that first feature... which is probably for the best!).
There are other obvious notes touched, like Ring (which we presume everyone knows about, at least from the remake) and House. (Just read the Cinematheque guide on House, if you don't already know about it. I saw it once and have no fucking idea what to make of it). And then there is Audition, a brilliant, restrained Takashi Miike that thematically kind of owes a bit to Vertigo, insofar as a man's attempts to recreate a past love go kind of awry. I have only ever seen it once, maybe 15 years ago, and have sold and bought DVDs of it four or five times since, as I decide, "No, I am never going to watch THAT again" then switch, the next time I see it at a thrift store, to "Jeez, I should have that in my collection." If you have managed to miss this film to date, it has a pretty amazing last act, which is, shall we say, tonally dissimilar to what has gone before. I would rather say no more of it; The Cinematheque program is not so careful to avoid spoilers, but, hey, do you like surprises? Just trust us and go.
Unless you're squeamish, or have a thing about [SPOILER ALERT] needles, then maybe don't! I guess there really can be no spoiler alerts possible when the most common promotional image for the film is a variant on this theme:
My own pick for dark-horse favourite - by me, the creepiest, most atmospheric, and as of today - a very damp day indeed - the most seasonally appropriate of the films on display is Dark Water, the only film in the program directed by someone who made another movie that is also in the program (Ring's Hideo Nakata). For my money, Dark Water is scarier than Ring, and has a much more subversive and surprising ending, which as I recall is [SPOILER ALERT!] actually kind of a happy, even cheerful one, which is totally bizarre, because the film will terrify you into a shivering, stressed-out mess on the way there. It sort of is like Audition in reverse: that film seduces you into a sort of cheerful, easy mode of viewing, then [SPOILER ALERT!] stabs you in both eyes with a needle (do you think I am being figurative?), but Dark Water is like a funnel of anxiety-inducing horror pouring all your nightmares into what turns out to be a brightly-coloured Hello Kitty lunchbox (in this case, note, I am being figurative; as far as I recall, no Hello Kitty lunchboxes are harmed, or even used, in the making of this movie). There was an English language remake with Jennifer Connelly, which I have not seen and hear no good things about, but the original is the kind of film that *I* actually find frightening, since it subtly turns your senses against you, creating tension between the desire to see what happens and the desire to protect yourself from it. That's how I recall it, anyhow - it's been awhile.
Of course, the best way to watch the film would be alone, in a very damp, quiet, empty apartment building, in Japan, during a rainstorm. Maybe there could be a leak in the ceiling. The cozy confines of the Cinematheque will no doubt make the film a little easier to take.
(By the way, Cinematheque blurb-writers: what the hell is a "skin-nestler?" I Googled it and all I got were listings for your movies, and mentions of a guy named Dave Nestler, who apparently has skin. Is someone trying to coin an idiom here? I tend to caution my students against that).
Bravo on curating this fantastic program of Japanese horror classics, Cinematheque! Now which of these do I have a chance of dragging my wife to?
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