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Sogo Ishii
A pioneer in Japanese experimental cinema and an inspiration for other film-makers like Shinya Tsukamoto, though he keeps reinventing himself and changing his style and interests. Started as a punk out of film-school and made gritty, violent and energetic films, some of them with bizarre punk elements. Then he became softer and sleeker, touting higher production values and an art-house style, while still experimenting slightly with cinematography tricks and energetic, technical flourishes. He explores any genre and style, exploring his many sides to the point of seeming schizophrenic, from period-horror, to action, drama, violent throwbacks to his earlier style, or very gentle, emotional and mystical movies, then back to hyperkinetic experimental action movies. Occasionally directs some new-age, or emo, soul-searching, mystical claptrap (Mirrored Mind and August in the Water). Several times he has taken a hiatus only to come back with yet another approach to cinema and life and at some point, he changed his name. His general approach gradually became more sophisticated and abstract over the decades, with later movies becoming increasingly bonkers or challenging and surreal, though you never know what his next movie will be like. He can make childish or nihilistic punk action one year, and cerebral surreal art-house movies the next. Only his strange and extreme films are reviewed here, but do check out his very good medieval fantasy samurai film Gojoe. Sogo Ishii's comeback and reinvention featuring a surprisingly serene and smooth but stylish and inventive approach to film-making. A serial killer is stalking the streets, killing women with needles and baffling the police. They make use of a woman with unique mental powers of empathy and she, in turn, tries to get the help of her inscrutable ex-boyfriend who works at de-brainwashing cultists. Lots of mind games, strange visions and confusion follow, with Sogo throwing brief references to everything that has to do with mind games including sensory deprivation, mind-control, hypnotism, hallucinations, brainwashing and extra sensory powers, but doesn't bother to tie it together with insight or a coherent plot, resulting in a visually stylish but very empty movie. The follow up, August in the Water, is equally empty, but slaps together a bunch of nonsense to do with new age mysticism, mother nature, water vs. stone, supernatural powers, and astrology. Ishii not only goes full-on surreal in this film, this is even a child-like bittersweet film that is as far removed from his violent punk beginnings as can be. At the surface, this is one of those films about a dirty old man and his fantasies regarding young women towards the end of his life. But it is actually mostly a sad, surreal examination of the twilight days of a lonely old author and poet, his memories and fantasies taking over, to the point that a cute pet goldfish inspires, in his literary mind, the character of a young lady who promptly comes to life, and who adores and torments him in his old age. Their interaction is both wrong and funny, perverse and charming. They talk as if she is a goldfish, and her dress serves as her tail with which he plays, but she is anything but a goldfish. To complicate matters, a female ghost from his past appears as well, in addition to a very interested young widow that makes them all jealous. It's a gentle, self-indulgent and childish but bittersweet drama. An art-house film so abstract, elusive and dense, ten attentive viewers could come away from it with ten interpretations. This combines Ishii's periods of strange experiments, weird cyberpunk action, and his soft mystical meditative side all in one film. It's about our inner world and identity. A man who lives in his own 'box', separating himself from the world can observe the world but not be observed. The world outside is fake and full of dangerous delusions compared to the world inside ourselves, and the people there are also plagued by the fact that their lives and personalities are dictated by others and their non-isolated environment. This manifests itself in this movie as the all-powerful 'notebook', which the Box Man can use to make observations and build his own all-important identity while in his 'box'. But there are others that want to become the Box Man. To see the Box Man is to become the Box Man, because once you look inside yourself, there is no turning back. But in this isolated, and ultimately solipsistic world, there is always the danger that others will enter your life and influence or change it, thus taking over your notebook and writing the screenplay that is your life. These primary ideas, and other secondary ones, hover in the background of this bizarre and challenging film. In the film's plot, the Box Man AKA 'Myself' is hounded and manipulated by a 'military man', and his slave 'fake doctor', both of which have bizarre identity issues, as well as aspirations to become Box Men, masters of their own fates, thus being able to commit the perfect crime. Hilarious and chaotic fights break out between men in boxes, using box-fu, psychology, and camera-fu to protect their identities as well as to destroy the intrusive Other. These people also keep and manipulate a beautiful nurse with them who exposes all of their flawed, narcissistic and obsessive aspirations simply by passively giving in to their demands. Some of these demands include nudity and bizarre experiments with enemas, or voyeuristic needs created by their isolation. She challenges the Box Man to emerge from his box 'nude', and to share his inner being with her in a larger box and reality. But who is really the Box Men in this movie, and, metaphysically, who is actually writing the screenplay and the meaning of the film itself? The film is a bit too out-there art-house and abstract to be brilliant, but, nevertheless, it is a challenging and fascinating film. Ishii is truly a man with many wildly different sides living inside that box. An early but definitive cyberpunk release. Assorted punks, the Yakuza, Mad Max like freaks wearing scraps, useless but violent cops, and assorted weirdos with insane costumes live in a nihilistic 'city' where life consists of punk music, concerts, endless fights, fast car and motorcycle rides, more fights, Yakuza power-games, general animalistic behaviour, girls that are forced to service the local violent thugs, lots of screaming and yelling, riots and more fights until it all ends in chaos. It doesn't contain much plot, but the film grittily and effectively captures the energy of punk anti-aesthetics and philosophy, a city gone nihilistic with hyperkinetic camera work and energetic atmosphere. It gets a little over-long during the middle but overall, this is a must-see for any punk aficionado. Absurd black comedy that can be taken both as crazy entertainment and a symbolic social satire on Japanese people. A family moves into a new home but soon catch a disease called 'civilization'. The son becomes obsessed with studying himself to death, the girl practices acting and singing in order to be the biggest star, the mother cooks and strips her clothes for guests, the grandfather goes back to his army days and the father tries to keep the family together by digging a basement in the living room and exterminating white ants. The insanity reaches a climax where everyone tries to kill each other. An experimental teaser containing three related shorts where someone runs into a dead-end and confronts his violent adversary with unexpected results. The confrontations are filmed with dizzying camera-work and experimental technical cinematography to attempt to capture the moment. The first features a mistaken shooting and bizarre musical episode that is redeemed by its poetic ending. The second is dull and goes on endlessly. The entertaining third takes place on a rooftop and features a strangely suicidal hostage who changes the confrontation into unexpected and energetic chaos. Interesting, but not too rewatchable. A revisitation of the cyberpunk craze with its fetish for metal and industrial power, only instead of going for an intense and gritty violent atmosphere as with Tetsuo, this flick goes for humor. One boy is hit by electricity from a pylon and grows up violent, the lizard rage within him only soothed by the electric guitar and daily jolts of electricity. Another is hit by lightning and works as a vigilante, mastering electronic surveillance and weaponry. When they meet, more than sparks fly and they soon find themselves in a battle to the death. Loud, over-the-top, blackly bizarre, stylish, and somewhat amusing. Ishii takes his newfound gentle and spiritual interests to a more abstract place, with slightly strange results. This is ostensibly a sci-fi drama, but actually a spiritual metaphor. Women are sprouting flowers from their breasts, and a company is grooming them for the special elements which they extract from these flowers. The problem is, the company is hiding something. These flowers require a gentle emotional touch and spiritual nourishment, and the company hires people to manage these requirements as well. But the flowers turn out to be much more than they seem. A spiritual clash ensues between cold science and greedy corporations versus humanity and their souls. Is the flower a parasite or a helpful symbiosis? What happens when the flower is allowed to bloom? A empathetic employee develops her humanity while a scientist grapples with his own, until the final bizarre revelation. One truly doesn't know what one will get from the next Ishii movie. Amidst the increasingly abstract and slower-paced art-house films he has been making lately, he suddenly releases this bonkers and very silly punk film. It's like Stephen Chow directing a period Samurai film while on acid. The plot is about a Ronin who tries to trick a clan into using his services, but it backfires and he finds himself embroiled in intrigue and a plot that spirals out of control. But what it really is about is a bunch of actors behaving like modern punks and Yakuza taking part in an demented period film that feels like it is improvising its screenplay and doubling-down on its insane ideas, escalating it to more madness every 20 minutes. There is a cult that thinks the world exists within a tapeworm, taking energetic belly dances and rituals to demented proportions. There are headless stomach dances, insolent monkeys, a talking human monkey, a reality-bending epic battle, humans turned into fireworks, swollen bellies ascending to heaven, and more. It's not so much a fantasy flick as a film that keeps changing the rules and its own reality, and which knows no boundaries. Amidst all this is Tadanobu Asano in one of his more demented performances (and that's saying a lot) as an insane tattooed guy that has two masked men speak his thoughts while he gyrates and chews the scenery and then poops out all the scenery from a monkey's anus. Too silly and random to be enjoyable, but definitely a one-of-a-kind derangement. Punk samurai indeed. A short, much rawer version of Dead End Run featuring only an extended chase sequence with wild music and cinematography. Cop chases a punk who had a violent fight with his girlfriend through every kind of urban setting, going on so long the punk starts hallucinating. Stylish, energetic, nerve-wracking. Although directed by Akira Ogata, who worked with Sogo Ishii, this features cinematography by Ishii and has his trademarked 1980s energetic-chaotic punk style all over it. A young man wakes up one morning and finds he has turned into a cabbage. But this is only the beginning, as his life starts to feature one strange absurdity after another, his status as a cabbage seemingly bringing out the crazies as well as the groupies. Some Yakuzas go on a finger-chopping spree, a suicide counselor recommends suicide, a girl spontaneously explodes, gangs and crowds chase him down, and a bizarre seemingly supernatural punk-goblin stalks him everywhere. What is a cabbage man to do? There is a lot of kinetic street-running and cinematography, and a pounding punk soundtrack delivering what feels like a humorous punk take on Kafka. |
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