Why all this is called A SNAKE OF JUNE is beyond me, but this is a powerful and effective film, that builds of the strengths of director Tsukamoto's film TETSUO IRON MAN, while showing that he's made a much deeper film that at the same time is less graphic but more moving.
He seemed to be progressing in the same way that David Cronenberg did up to a point where his least graphic film, DEAD RINGERS is his most powerful and disturbing because he's internalized all the gross out gags he used on the way to making that great film. Since then Cronenberg has largely lost his way, had no where else to go, or perhaps just failed to find the right material to continue his growth with. Likewise Tsukamoto may well reach a dead end eventually too, but not yet.
Any film about sex has lots of baggage to carry and overcome, or be overwhelmed by. The problem with films that feature sexual themes and situations is that they usually parade as art but are really exploitation and/or masturbatory fantasies's both for their makers and their audience. If you're making a sex movie then make a sex movie don't try to tell anyone, especially yourself, that you're making art. The problem with turning a camera on and aiming it at a naked person is that the audience will always go, "wow, they are naked!" All character and the artifice of the story has built, the crucial suspension of disbelief will instantly vanish. The movie instantly becomes a sea of cheap sexual thrills. Whole magazines have sprung up just to show off the latest naked freeze frames of actresses mostly, not exclusively, who bare it all. The argument that pornographers make that screen sexuality is forbidden while screen violence is accepted don't understand, or pretend not to know, that nakedness is real where screen violence is false. The audience knows it. The characters in the movie aren't really dead at the end. But, wow, did you see her she was totally naked!!! Oh and women out there, don't pretend you don't talk about butt shots male actors indulge in, I've heard you while you thought I wasn't listening.
Now stay with me just a moment longer. Some filmmakers like Paul Verhoven for example are so thrilled to show off the nudity and outrageousness in general that their enthusiasm can be infectious and you go along with them. Or of course you can just ignore what the press releases and what critics say and just enjoy this type of film as a good peep show. For example, Roger Ebert is openly hot for certain actresses and will almost invariably love movies they are in when they are naked, but his endorsements of the films don't admit this fact, it skews his judgement. I'm saying if you want to go to enjoy the cheap naked thrills for what they are that's great. But that's all it is. Love it for what it is, not for what it's not.
A SNAKE OF JUNE is loaded with elements that could make it a perfectly fine art house (remember that this term in the 60's was a euphemism for a place to see racy foreign films which featured nudity before it was allowed stateside) sex film. But Tsukamoto successfully makes a genuine film about sex/voyeurism/obsession/ and redemption all at the same time. He also manages to make the sex sexy when he wants to and disturbing when he wants to as well.
The lead, Asuka Kurosawa, is a large part of this. She is believably mousy at the start and the remarkably beautiful and more importantly sensual later on. Tsukamoto saves he on screen nudity for close to the end of the film, this helps as well. And when it does come, it comes at a moment when all the three main characters share the moment at the same time. So it's a climax on many levels for all characters at the same time.
The stalker/photographer character is driving her to a sexual awakening and his dealing with his own obsession with his own illness. The actual awakening is portrayed as being humiliating and more painful than pleasurable, but he'll show the pleasure by the end as well. There's a wonderful moment that shows this power of sexual love as healing that I can't reveal here without ruining it.
The story is broken into sections the first of which is the wife's view of the story, and then the husband's. There is, unlike in THE GRUDGE, no overlapping repeated time elements, but the story is seen from the husband's point of view for he back half. This works surprisingly well. The husband seems like such a freak in the beginning that it is surprising how we get to know him and route for him to become what his wife really needs.
The whole story is about what the characters really need and finding that to be a successful human being.
Now there are problems in this second half of the film. Ironically the more obviously weird elements or now post cyber punk elements aren't really needed and are confusing. How and why does the husband find himself with a bunch of other men suddenly watching women being drowned in a tank? Why does he make no mention of this ever happening to him or call the police afterwards? Why does the photographer suddenly have a doctor Octopus type of metal penis thing that he grabs the husband with at one point? (Maybe this is the Snake of the title, June is the rainiest month in Japan) The director himself confesses in one of the featurettes he doesn't even know what the penis thing is doing in the movie.
Perhaps these things are only in the husband's imagination but that's not clear and frankly it's a stretch on my part to forgive these out of place elements. These things aren't needed in the film, it's strange and compelling enough without them. These are just left over images that worked much better in an overtly gonzo film like TETSUO than here.
The film is deliberately paced and not so much shot in black and white as in blue and white. It feels like what it is 16mm blownup and printed on color stock, but it's frequently and always effective. The jerky hand held moments are intercut with more deliberate and forceful compositions, but watching closely the hand held elements are used only when the characters are uncertain, not just put in to make it look like a reality TV show. The sound mix available in 5.1 or in DTS doesn't really demand or use either very much. Post dubbing of the actors voices is distracting at times. Chu Ishiwawa's mostly synthesized music score is effective except in some of the more overtly horror scenes where is sounds like bad horror movie music.
The menu pages are all hyped up, especially the opening menu page that essentially shows you the first shots of the movie. When you press play you seem to be seeing the menu page twice in a row when actually it's the start of the film. A poor choice on the DVD producer's side.
The two featurettes are both interesting and worth the time to hear the actors and crew talk seriously about something worth talking seriously about. Director Tsukamoto, who plays the stalker/photographer himself talks about how he found the character less and less threatening the more he thought about it, this attitude makes the film much richer than it would have been had he made the film earlier in his career as he would have liked to.
Though Tartan on the original dvd US release, puts a banner on the box that says ASIA EXTREME this is not a film likely to be endorsed by the large Asian, especially Japanese, anime/ pornography crowd. It will be too slow and way too non graphic for them.
There is far too much going on in this film to talk about much of it here especially without ruining it if you haven't seen it. The script has some admittedly willfully obscure elements both of story and of character, but the film probably rewards repeated viewings that will make just what the hell is going on make more and more sense on many levels if you care to really delve into this interesting and powerful little movie.
He seemed to be progressing in the same way that David Cronenberg did up to a point where his least graphic film, DEAD RINGERS is his most powerful and disturbing because he's internalized all the gross out gags he used on the way to making that great film. Since then Cronenberg has largely lost his way, had no where else to go, or perhaps just failed to find the right material to continue his growth with. Likewise Tsukamoto may well reach a dead end eventually too, but not yet.
Any film about sex has lots of baggage to carry and overcome, or be overwhelmed by. The problem with films that feature sexual themes and situations is that they usually parade as art but are really exploitation and/or masturbatory fantasies's both for their makers and their audience. If you're making a sex movie then make a sex movie don't try to tell anyone, especially yourself, that you're making art. The problem with turning a camera on and aiming it at a naked person is that the audience will always go, "wow, they are naked!" All character and the artifice of the story has built, the crucial suspension of disbelief will instantly vanish. The movie instantly becomes a sea of cheap sexual thrills. Whole magazines have sprung up just to show off the latest naked freeze frames of actresses mostly, not exclusively, who bare it all. The argument that pornographers make that screen sexuality is forbidden while screen violence is accepted don't understand, or pretend not to know, that nakedness is real where screen violence is false. The audience knows it. The characters in the movie aren't really dead at the end. But, wow, did you see her she was totally naked!!! Oh and women out there, don't pretend you don't talk about butt shots male actors indulge in, I've heard you while you thought I wasn't listening.
Now stay with me just a moment longer. Some filmmakers like Paul Verhoven for example are so thrilled to show off the nudity and outrageousness in general that their enthusiasm can be infectious and you go along with them. Or of course you can just ignore what the press releases and what critics say and just enjoy this type of film as a good peep show. For example, Roger Ebert is openly hot for certain actresses and will almost invariably love movies they are in when they are naked, but his endorsements of the films don't admit this fact, it skews his judgement. I'm saying if you want to go to enjoy the cheap naked thrills for what they are that's great. But that's all it is. Love it for what it is, not for what it's not.
A SNAKE OF JUNE is loaded with elements that could make it a perfectly fine art house (remember that this term in the 60's was a euphemism for a place to see racy foreign films which featured nudity before it was allowed stateside) sex film. But Tsukamoto successfully makes a genuine film about sex/voyeurism/obsession/ and redemption all at the same time. He also manages to make the sex sexy when he wants to and disturbing when he wants to as well.
The lead, Asuka Kurosawa, is a large part of this. She is believably mousy at the start and the remarkably beautiful and more importantly sensual later on. Tsukamoto saves he on screen nudity for close to the end of the film, this helps as well. And when it does come, it comes at a moment when all the three main characters share the moment at the same time. So it's a climax on many levels for all characters at the same time.
The stalker/photographer character is driving her to a sexual awakening and his dealing with his own obsession with his own illness. The actual awakening is portrayed as being humiliating and more painful than pleasurable, but he'll show the pleasure by the end as well. There's a wonderful moment that shows this power of sexual love as healing that I can't reveal here without ruining it.
The story is broken into sections the first of which is the wife's view of the story, and then the husband's. There is, unlike in THE GRUDGE, no overlapping repeated time elements, but the story is seen from the husband's point of view for he back half. This works surprisingly well. The husband seems like such a freak in the beginning that it is surprising how we get to know him and route for him to become what his wife really needs.
The whole story is about what the characters really need and finding that to be a successful human being.
Now there are problems in this second half of the film. Ironically the more obviously weird elements or now post cyber punk elements aren't really needed and are confusing. How and why does the husband find himself with a bunch of other men suddenly watching women being drowned in a tank? Why does he make no mention of this ever happening to him or call the police afterwards? Why does the photographer suddenly have a doctor Octopus type of metal penis thing that he grabs the husband with at one point? (Maybe this is the Snake of the title, June is the rainiest month in Japan) The director himself confesses in one of the featurettes he doesn't even know what the penis thing is doing in the movie.
Perhaps these things are only in the husband's imagination but that's not clear and frankly it's a stretch on my part to forgive these out of place elements. These things aren't needed in the film, it's strange and compelling enough without them. These are just left over images that worked much better in an overtly gonzo film like TETSUO than here.
The film is deliberately paced and not so much shot in black and white as in blue and white. It feels like what it is 16mm blownup and printed on color stock, but it's frequently and always effective. The jerky hand held moments are intercut with more deliberate and forceful compositions, but watching closely the hand held elements are used only when the characters are uncertain, not just put in to make it look like a reality TV show. The sound mix available in 5.1 or in DTS doesn't really demand or use either very much. Post dubbing of the actors voices is distracting at times. Chu Ishiwawa's mostly synthesized music score is effective except in some of the more overtly horror scenes where is sounds like bad horror movie music.
The menu pages are all hyped up, especially the opening menu page that essentially shows you the first shots of the movie. When you press play you seem to be seeing the menu page twice in a row when actually it's the start of the film. A poor choice on the DVD producer's side.
The two featurettes are both interesting and worth the time to hear the actors and crew talk seriously about something worth talking seriously about. Director Tsukamoto, who plays the stalker/photographer himself talks about how he found the character less and less threatening the more he thought about it, this attitude makes the film much richer than it would have been had he made the film earlier in his career as he would have liked to.
Though Tartan on the original dvd US release, puts a banner on the box that says ASIA EXTREME this is not a film likely to be endorsed by the large Asian, especially Japanese, anime/ pornography crowd. It will be too slow and way too non graphic for them.
There is far too much going on in this film to talk about much of it here especially without ruining it if you haven't seen it. The script has some admittedly willfully obscure elements both of story and of character, but the film probably rewards repeated viewings that will make just what the hell is going on make more and more sense on many levels if you care to really delve into this interesting and powerful little movie.