I can't think of any movie that starts with a 10 minute long father-daughter sex scene and only gets more taboo and reprehensible. Takashi Miike as only he can takes what could be a feel good family drama premise and perverts it completely. There have been many stories made about an outsider coming into a dysfunctional family and making them happy and "normal" again. Here that is done through rape, drugs, necrophilia, lactation fetishes, and murder. If that doesn't bring a family together I don't know what does. There are other interesting things Miike is trying to say throughout this movie with how it is shot documentary style and and how the parents in this family have to become more dominant and not pushovers to bring the family back together.
Synopsis: A troubled and perverted family find their lives intruded by a mysterious stranger who seems to help find a balance in their disturbing natures.
During the film's opening incest sex scene it is shot from the side and a mid angle with no zoom really. That is the first shot of the movie that echoes what you see throughout which is the look of a webcam. This film is shot in that way I think Miike is doing two things with that. The first making the exaggerated nature of this movie more serious. When this is shot documentary style it makes the family drama throughout seem more real in spite of how silly and ridiculous parts of this movie are. Later scenes are shown to have been filmed on the camera such as the father being a victim of rape and him later filming his son being bullied. I think Miike is showing how around that time, and certainly now we film everything trying to savor certain moments when you should be enjoying what you are doing. Because these moments are such heinous acts it almost pulls you into them. The movie is trying to make you feel guilty as a bystander as well. How many times have we seen people filming others getting beaten up or something like that? I think Miike was aware of things like reality TV becoming popular around this time, or maybe even internet porn fueling different taboo fetishes people have in case of the opening scene. only feels more relevant now.
Adding to the exaggeratory nature of this film is the darkly comedic tone at times. Ridiculous things happen and people treat it as a joke. There is also some farcical stuff going on throughout this movie. The son for example had been abusing the Mom, she becomes a prostitute and reverses that abuse onto a man who wants to be beaten with a belt. This leads to her finding out she likes and can lactate. This is fundamental to motherhood. Suddenly that one night she is much more happy and confident. When the son throws the dinner she made at her face she throws a knife back at him. This is actually the biggest change in this movie is the mother becoming a much tougher matriarch figure instead of the victim and that is where a functional family starts. Everyone in this family is a victim or aggressor of some kind. The father was raped by men. He later rapes a woman. The son abuses his mother, he is bullied by his classmates. It takes the mother and the father finding their inner paternal and maternal side to bring the family back together again, with help from the visitor.
I can't say enough about the craziness of that necrophilia scene. It basically encompasses everything about the movie. You all ready have the taboo part down doing necrophilia. It is funny though because of the comedic side to it. The father while inside the corpse says something like, "I didn't know I could get a corpse wet, that is a secret in life." He then pulls his penis out of the woman and there is feces all over him and he says "It's shit." So not only is that a gross out part but I think Miike is trying to say life can suck sometimes and don't take this too seriously, but a foundational family can lead to a happier life and you have to find that foundation. Too add to ridiculousness of that scene, because of rigor mortis the Father's penis gets stuck inside the dead woman and his wife gives him drugs to shrink it and get it out. Another disgusting but funny scene.
The film ends with the final culmination to the family changing their ways and that is the mother and father brutally killing the son's bullies with saws and knives. The prostituting daughter is hit by the visitor with a rock, dissuading her from doing that anymore, because she got hurt. That scene is full circle as the father was hit by the stranger with a rock just past the beginning of the film. She comes home and joins the father as they suck on the mother's breasts. Now again, that sounds disgusting but it goes back to the point of the matriarch being the foundation for a stable family. Miike was trying to contrast the family coming together with the ridiculous and shocking acts needed to do it, these same acts both intrigue and repulse as an audience. The movie never makes you feel comfortable with this family or what they are doing, but perhaps that is the point. In a world full of different temptations and different ways to connect families are more apart than ever, but yet still together and still linked. I can't think of many movies that show that in such a fascinating, quirky way.
Rating: 10/10
Trivia: The film was shot in seven days.
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