★ 7 / 10
This is difficult because I expected to like
badelf
This is difficult because I expected to like this movie much more than I did. There is a lot of creativity in it, starting with the premise itself. The…
This is difficult because I expected to like this movie much more than I did. There is a lot of creativity in it, starting with the premise itself. The photography and sometimes other-wordly sets also impressed me.
What disappointed me was the absence of a communicated clear vision. At the end, I didn't know what I had seen or how I felt about it. I wasn't sure if the story was about mask & identity, or about cultural monster labels and prejudice, or about the aftermath of Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombing, or about love and the lack of it.
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★ 9 / 10
The Arbitrariness Of Identity
nin-chan
Teshigahara has never shied away from examining the more unsettling dimensions of human experience. With the trilogy of full-length collaborations with Kobo…
Teshigahara has never shied away from examining the more unsettling dimensions of human experience. With the trilogy of full-length collaborations with Kobo Abe, Teshigahara encapsulated the Kafkaesque hellishness of quotidian life, the yawning, gaping chasm of emptiness that lies beneath the veneer of stability.The ubiquitous influence of the French absurdists/existentialists, Kafka and Dostoevsky looms large here- one is reminded most often of Sartre's "No Exit", R.D. Laing's "Knots" and Dostoevsky's "Crime And Punishment". Sartre, Laing and Abe all underline how little autonomy we really have over constituting our own identities- often, we may find that we exist only as beings-for-others, entirely 'encrusted' within personas not of our own making, but assigned to us. For Okuyama and the unnamed scarred woman, they are imprisoned in their vulgar corporeality. Met with revulsion everywhere, they come to accept ugliness as an indelible mark of their being. Trapped within the oppressive confines of flesh, they cannot evade the pity and repugnance that their countenances arouse. It is little wonder that Okuyama becomes self-lacerating and embittered.Throughout the film, the viewer confronts how precarious identity truly is- the assumption that selves are continuous and linear from day-to-day rests entirely on the visage. The doctor's paroxysm of inspiration in the beer hall affords a glimpse into the anarchic potential of his terrible invention, one that would rend civilization asunder. Indeed, the final epiphany is particularly unnerving- "some masks come off, some don't". We all erect facades, smokescreens of self that we maintain with great effort.Beneath the epidermis, as Okuyama discovers, is vacuity and nihility. This is likely the explanation for Okuyama's gratuitous, Raskolnikov-esquire acts of crime at the conclusion of the film- faced with the frontierless void of freedom, he desires to be apprehended and branded by society. Integration into society, after all, requires a socially-assigned, unified role, constituted by drivers licenses, serial numbers and criminal records. Without such things, Okuyama is a non-entity. Aesthetically, the film exhibits all the rigour and poetry of Teshigahara's other work. Cocteau, Ernst and Duchamp, in particular, are notable wellsprings for the film's visual grammar. Literate, expressionistic and profoundly disorienting, this might be my favorite Teshigahara work.
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★ 8 / 10
Navigations of the New...
Xstal
An accident at work has taken place, the result means you are left, without a face, only bandages for cover, they envelope and they smother, your existence now…
An accident at work has taken place, the result means you are left, without a face, only bandages for cover, they envelope and they smother, your existence now in limbo, an unfilled space. An opportunity arises to evolve, to put the past behind, to be absolved, present with a new profile, posturing with a new style, a future about which, you can revolve.
A fascinating piece of film making that has many layers and interpretations. For me, I see Mr. Okuyama representing post war Japan, the accident that removes his features the raw wound of two atomic bombs, the bandages a place to hide while the country considers its future and the new face, the new Japan, that finds a way to integrate itself into a modern world, while holding on to traditions and cultures that take a little more time to retune as the situation clarifies. Any film with Machiko Kyô performing is always a bonus too.
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86%
TOMATOMETER
· 7 reviews
90%
AUDIENCE
· 1K ratings
7.8/10
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we need 1080p