1.08.2004
thoughts on violence
so i guess it's fair to say that i'm interested in violence. i'm interested in it as a way of comprehending things (in music and film especially)-- most particularly when expressed by non violent people. i like a lot of the ideas of isabel cristina pinedo, who's book recreational terror makes several interesting links between violent horror and postmodern desire (*in a vasly oversimplified nutshell-- gore makes manifest the desire to see the rational, enlightenment "man" ripped to shreds, not to mention compartmentalized, turned inside out, etc.*). i'm also a fan of the dumb, schlocky, kung fu side of violence. i love horror movies and genre movies. i loved "kill bill," for example, and i'm a huge fan of certain dario argento movies (rent the dvd version of phenomena).
so it surprised me the other night when i found myself turning off a movie for being too violent. the flick in question was ichi the killer, one of the most brutal films of the always brutal takashi miike. i have mixed feelings about miike. on the one hand, he's fun and stylish and occasionally weird as hell (the best of the ones i've seen is his horror/musical the happiness of the katakuris). on the other hand, i occasionally find him a bit shallow and cheap in his provocations. he has a habit of taking fairly mundane, yet entertaining, b-movie fare and dressing it up with some psycho-sexual, freudian hocus pocus or the occasional new-wave prankster-ism. the result is that nerdy art-flick-loving americans like me get the privilege of waxing theoretical, but the content always strikes me as spread a bit too thin. he's at his richest as a stylist, and i find that when he attempts to amount to more than that he often falls short.
for example, i find the male-fantasy-surrealism of a film like audition to amount to little more than second rate david lynch on a cerebral level, but as a straight-up horror movie i think it's fantastic. the pacing is great, the freaky stuff freaks you out, the jolts make you jump in your seat. it's a fun movie. i guess i just wish his "weirdness" was less deliberate or something.
**keep in mind that all of this is being written here in dubya's america. i've never been to japan. i've never studied japan, or japanese cinema or anything like that. i'm just a guy who likes movies. i think that maybe some of my suspicions are due to the fact that i'm absolutely bewildered by the bits and pieces that amount to what we call "japanese culture" here in the states. my criticisms here are admittedly naive.**
anyway, back to violence. i just couldn't stomach this movie. and i'm trying to think through why. i know one thing that did it-- the misogyny, which cuts waaaay deeper than the femme-fatale misogyny of audition. but then again, there's certainly no short supply of that in movies, and especially in horror.
there are certian movies that really do shock. the original version of the texas chainsaw massacre is perhaps an important example. i can't think of a dumber, meaner, more unabashedly illiterate expression of sadistic fantasy, and yet i find it totally fascinating. i actually think there are aspects of texas chainsaw that are somehow effective in a way unmatched by any other movie i've ever seen (however unintentional these aspects may be). i think the thing with ichi is that it always maintains some sort of authorial control. miike seemes really determined to push buttons/limits throughout the film-- turning the experience into the sort of how-low-can-you-go endurance test that i like to think i grew out of shortly after high school. and what was left in its place was a lot of nasty nonsense that sucked all the fun out of horror and gangsters and even gore itself. i felt rattled, in a way, but it was a flat sort of rattled. kind of like a hangover.
i'm beginning to ramble, but i'd like to end with this... i'd like to have a discussion about this (hahahaha)... i'm curious about the types of things that mark our personal barriers of excess. what's too much? is there a specific taboo that you can't watch (for example, i can't watch bulging veins)? how is this reflected through a personal or social predicament? how are these things historical? is it prudish to establish parameters? do we establish them unconsciously anyway?
comments?
so it surprised me the other night when i found myself turning off a movie for being too violent. the flick in question was ichi the killer, one of the most brutal films of the always brutal takashi miike. i have mixed feelings about miike. on the one hand, he's fun and stylish and occasionally weird as hell (the best of the ones i've seen is his horror/musical the happiness of the katakuris). on the other hand, i occasionally find him a bit shallow and cheap in his provocations. he has a habit of taking fairly mundane, yet entertaining, b-movie fare and dressing it up with some psycho-sexual, freudian hocus pocus or the occasional new-wave prankster-ism. the result is that nerdy art-flick-loving americans like me get the privilege of waxing theoretical, but the content always strikes me as spread a bit too thin. he's at his richest as a stylist, and i find that when he attempts to amount to more than that he often falls short.
for example, i find the male-fantasy-surrealism of a film like audition to amount to little more than second rate david lynch on a cerebral level, but as a straight-up horror movie i think it's fantastic. the pacing is great, the freaky stuff freaks you out, the jolts make you jump in your seat. it's a fun movie. i guess i just wish his "weirdness" was less deliberate or something.
**keep in mind that all of this is being written here in dubya's america. i've never been to japan. i've never studied japan, or japanese cinema or anything like that. i'm just a guy who likes movies. i think that maybe some of my suspicions are due to the fact that i'm absolutely bewildered by the bits and pieces that amount to what we call "japanese culture" here in the states. my criticisms here are admittedly naive.**
anyway, back to violence. i just couldn't stomach this movie. and i'm trying to think through why. i know one thing that did it-- the misogyny, which cuts waaaay deeper than the femme-fatale misogyny of audition. but then again, there's certainly no short supply of that in movies, and especially in horror.
there are certian movies that really do shock. the original version of the texas chainsaw massacre is perhaps an important example. i can't think of a dumber, meaner, more unabashedly illiterate expression of sadistic fantasy, and yet i find it totally fascinating. i actually think there are aspects of texas chainsaw that are somehow effective in a way unmatched by any other movie i've ever seen (however unintentional these aspects may be). i think the thing with ichi is that it always maintains some sort of authorial control. miike seemes really determined to push buttons/limits throughout the film-- turning the experience into the sort of how-low-can-you-go endurance test that i like to think i grew out of shortly after high school. and what was left in its place was a lot of nasty nonsense that sucked all the fun out of horror and gangsters and even gore itself. i felt rattled, in a way, but it was a flat sort of rattled. kind of like a hangover.
i'm beginning to ramble, but i'd like to end with this... i'd like to have a discussion about this (hahahaha)... i'm curious about the types of things that mark our personal barriers of excess. what's too much? is there a specific taboo that you can't watch (for example, i can't watch bulging veins)? how is this reflected through a personal or social predicament? how are these things historical? is it prudish to establish parameters? do we establish them unconsciously anyway?
comments?
