July 1, 2006
YAKUYOWZA!
I recently watched a film called Kiroshiya 1 (English title "Ichi, The Killer). Actually, I'm most of the way through it and am taking a break. Adapted from a manga novel, it is possibly the most horrifying movie I have ever watched.
When a yakuza boss diappears with a large sum of money, his sado-masochistic #2 man scours the Shinjuku district of Tokyo for him, leaving a wake of the deformed, tortured, and dead. While he suspects a rival gang, what he doesn't know is that his boss has been killed by a psychopathic young man being used as a pawn by a retired police officer.
Frankly, I can't believe I'm still watching this movie. The level of sadism, torture, mutilation, sexual depravity, and general violence makes Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill series look like a Disney cartoon. Apparently, when Koroshiya 1 made its Western premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, barf bags were distributed as a promotional device. That was not uncalled for. I haven't had to close my eyes so many times during a movie since I was about five years old.
I hate to make sweeping cultural generalizations about a society based on singular works of art, but the fact that manga is a mainstream cultural phenomena originating and flourishing in Japan kind of freaks me out. It is some sick fucking shit, no two ways about it. I'm generally not a squeamish person, but the fact that such a graphic level of grotesquerie could find a widespread audience is really disturbing.
UPDATE: I actually went to bed last night contemplating what was the artistic purpose of the film discussed above. I had some thoughts. Godzilla films are purportedly an expression of Japanese national response and anxiety about living in a nuclear age following the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have a similar theory about hyper-violent-sexualized-manga-and manga-inspired films.
The first has to do with the archetype of the Japanese schoolgirl in knee socks and standardized primary school uniform. I'm guessing that this represents a subconscious representation of Japan as a nation. When the country entered WWII, it was a newly modernizing country, in its prime, so to speak. Also, the Japanese have a fetishistic impulse towards the pure. There are vending machines that launder people's bills. The frequent rape, torture, and sexual exploitation of the schoolgirl archetype is a reflection of a nation's image to view itself as something pure that has somehow been violated.
Then there is the hyper-accentuated violence. Japan is a nation that endured and committed the most horrific of war violence. After the war, there was little avenue for catharsis. The country was occupied by the U.S. and had its future dictated to it. For a people focused on pride and face, this must have been deeply humiliating. Without an external avenue of revenge available and a growing sense of internal guilt about what Japan had done, I can see how a nation's fascination for violent rage could turn inward. But it wasn't turned inward on itself, but on a fascination with the demi-monde of yakuza, who seemed shockingly potent to an emasculated nation.
American (and "Spaghetti") westerns are recognized as a cultural artifact, after the fact, rationalizing the brutality of westward expansion of the continental U.S. It's not unreasonable to see hyper-violent manga entertainment as a reasonable response to a national defeat and shame, mirroring its own self image and perceived violation and guilt over a horrific war. Hopefully this is more of a national catharsis than a national indulgence and indication of denial.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at July 1, 2006 1:52 AM
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