Film: The City Of Lost Souls
Release date: 18th November 2002
Certificate: 18
Running time: 103 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Teah, Michelle Reis, Kôji Kikkawa, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Patricia Manterola
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Takashi Miike’s films polarise audiences around the world. From the Freudian nightmare of Visitor Q, to the rom-com turned torture porn of Audition, Miike’s films are deliberately difficult. His films misbehave, so The City Of Lost Souls was never going to follow a traditional ganster plot-line.
The film concerns a Japanese/Brazilian killer for hire, Mario and his relationship with Kei, a Chinese hairdresser, who he saves from being deported. Quickly becoming lovers they soon get married and decide that the only way for the two of them to be happy is to leave the country.
What initially begins as a plan to procure passports spirals out of control until they become entangled with local gangs, one in particular who, though it is never explained precisely why, is obsessed with Kei, and plots to tie her up for his own sexual gratification...
Like most Takashi Miike films, the main plot is a springboard for an innumerable series of sub-plots, ranging from the terrifying to the demented. While the local television presenter and his dwarf companion seek to expand into the cocaine industry, a local cockfighting pit plays regular host to atrocious CGI chickens who battle to the death in pantomimic Matrix-homages. We also have the man who casually has sexual intercourse with pigs, the break-dancing assassins, the brothel containing a blind girl with mystical powers, and the bumbling police men who have the mafia bugged, but chose to never actually intervene in the ensuing insanity.
While the film’s enthusiasm for chaos is infectious, it is marred by its own post-modern sentiments. Its knowingly ironic shoot-outs and references to other films recall all too readily the Tarantino-inspired films of the 1990s, while it’s pre-occupation with bodily fluids becomes grating rather than amusing. Most obviously the film reminds the viewer of the Oliver Stone directed Natural Born Killers, which makes similar points about the media portrayal of violence, uses flash-cuts and MTV inspired pacing, and shares the same narrative formula of couple-in-love on the run. While in Natural Born Killers Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson created characters that were as likeable as they were obscene, here we are presented with two boring protagonists that are given no back-story or personality with which to connect.
To focus purely on plotting and character-development is to perhaps miss the point. The visual style of the film is what the main attraction is, and while a lot of the effects and ideas have dated, this still makes for a dizzying viewing experience. Much like his film Ichi The Killer, Takashi uses a range of generic conventions and filming styles to create a movie in flux.
At the beginning of the film, we are shown a scene which is a clear homage to Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, before delving straight into a Hollywood-esque car chase sequence; when one of the many sub-characters visits a prostitute, the film becomes a grainy hand-held affair; the cock fighting sequences are lacklustre animation; and the film is full of disorientating visual tactics such as the looping of a single frame/scene as if the film has simply stopped working.
The film’s clever use of experiential camera techniques and knowing humour grow tiring when there is no human element to attach it to. The plot becomes muddled and confused, the characters are two-dimensional, and it all seems too familiar. When you consider this film was made by the same director of the tightly-plotted Audition, or the gruesomely effective Gozu, its faults become all the more unforgivable. This film is a narcasstic act of showing, in which the audience’s pleasure is down to whether you are prepared to forgive a total lack of plot for a spectacular cinematic frenzy.
Takashi Miike’s post-modern western creates an intense visual experience which, with joyful abandon, revels in cartoonish ultra-violence and gratuitous toilet humour. Self-indulgent but undeniably affecting, he creates an assault to the senses that will delight his cult-following, but will appear dated and childish to others. AC
No comments:
Post a Comment