Takashi Shimizu avoids films that wallow in the gross and sadistic. His reputation as a stylist was carved by his ability to create claustrophobic tension through dreadful atmosphere. He even feuded with Sony over how much violence should be included in the American remake of his third Ju-on film, Ju-on: The Grudge. “First it was not enough, then, too much,” he said, adding. “Some stupid producers.” So the fact that Marebito features excessively gory and torturous imagery isn’t a departure without consequence. It’s the most insightful exploration into the usually soft spoken Shimizu’s thoughts on the subject, and a bleak outlook on media, technology, and society’s evolving dependency to be consumed.
(2004/Japan)
Review by - Scott Mosley
Directed By - Takashi Shimizu
Cast - Shinya Tsukamoto, Timomi Miyashita, Kazuhiro Nakahara, Miho Ninagaw, Shun Sugata
Source - Tartan Asia Extreme
Dvd - Region 1 NTSC/ 92 mins/2006
Based on his novel of the same name, Chiaki Konaka’s (Malice@Dolls, Sleeping Bride) script follows Masuoka, a videographer who by happenstance captures a man’s grisly suicide on video. Fascinated by finding and experiencing the true essence of fear, Masuoka eventually returns to the subway site of the suicide where he discovers a mysterious, labyrinthine underground world forged of myth and history. There he finds and frees a nubile young girl from bondage, only to find her life is predicated on blood for survival and the frightening truth he so desperately seeks about his own existence.
Marebito weaves a tangled web of subjectively real, subconscious, and hallucinatory thought as the viewer is left to unravel what, if anything, truly happens outside Masuoka’s fractured psyche. It’s a narrative device that relies on impression and suggestion instead of clear cut solutions. Characters and settings are more than what illogically appear on the surface, bringing to mind the more challenging work of David Lynch, and the fragile line between madness and the profound walked in Aronofsky’s Pi.
Shinya Tsukamuto, a film-maker whose body of work includes Tetsuo: The Iron Man, a film that can lay a claim to molding the Japanese fantastic, as well as sharing Marebito’s fascination with mans vulnerability to be negatively altered, plays the obsessive voyeur Masuoka with icy detachment and paranoia. Where Tetsuo is more concerned with the Cronenbergian conceit of body mutations, Marebito questions the inner being . Newcomer, Tomomi Miyashita is the perfect fawn as the sympathetic, vampiric F from the Mountains Of Madness beneath Tokyo, She displays an uncanny animalistic agility and is part of reoccurring references to Lovecraft that speculate a humanity’s origin, present, and future, whose very soul has slipped into the abyss of superficial, information age meaninglessness.
Shot in only eight days around the same time as The Grudge remake, for a fraction of the cost, Marebito is Shimizu’s entry in the “Banco” series, the result of a collaboration between the Film School Of Tokyo and the Eurospace cinema. Shimizu once again shows his knack of the digital video medium, but unlike the first two shot on video V-cinema Ju-on films, Shimizu uses it to tie together Konaka’s diverse influences and ideas with a style that is at times experimental and others painfully immediate, introducing povs of static surveillance, Masuoka’s distorted viewfinder, and omnipresent clarity. It’s this meeting of the minds that makes Marebito a unique vision of present day phobia and the archetypes used to express them, and one doesn’t arrive at the film’s frisson without the other.
Marebito will invariably not sit well with some. It’s an overly depressive film even by J-Horror standards, and its ambiguity can either be looked upon as a strength or weakness. But be forewarned it’s prominent.The Tartan dvd should come as a revelation for any Horror fan looking for something off the beaten path, or those that were on the verge of giving up on J-Horror altogether. Image quality is great, with no noticeable difference between the previous Hong Kong disc. The Tartan disc also adds a DTS 5.1 surround track. Although Toshiyuki Takine’s music is fittingly minimal, it’s a nice option to have. The sound design of ambient noise from the surrounding city scape as the backdrop to Masuoka’s deadpan narraration, creates an unforgiving feeling of alienation for the audience that is further accented by Takine’s frigid refrain. Extras include a theatrical trailer, interviews with the Producer, a lively Shinya Tsukamoto, and Shimizu. Who once again reaffirms his stance on the sadean screen violence, and when asked his opinion on the increased number of unmotivated violent crimes in Tokyo simply says “It’s scary.” Indeed.
STORY/FILM - 4.5/5 BITCH SLAPS
PICTURE - 5/5 BITCH SLAPS
AUDIO - 5/5 BITCH SLAPS
EXTRAS - 4/5 BITCH SLAPS
OVERALL DVD - 4.5/5 BITCH SLAPSPurchase this at X-Ploited Cinema
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