Môjû

Part of the Japanese New Wave of the 1960's and early 1970's, - which, like the French Nouvelle Vague developed a new form of cinema, largely made up of film critics, and deconstructionists - Yasuzo Masumura's deeply psycho-sexual drama about power and sensuality, explored ideas such as the changing roles in society (particularly of women), surprisingly - unlike the French wave - through the studio system. Based upon Rampo Edogawa's novel, published in 1931, the film has been previously compared to John Fowles's excellent 1963 novel, 'The Collector' - and certainly some of the themes are similar.

Self-proclaimed "disliked model," Aki (Mako Midori), begins the film in a gallery, her modelling career not going to plan within the commercial world, she had taken a job posing for a famous photographer in "erotic" S&M style images. The exhibition is a success, but here, now, it is early, and she views a strange man fondling a sculpture effigy of her, that resides at the centre of the room. Having hired a masseur, the blind, Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), enters her flat and begins lasciviously to touch her body, proclaiming she has the most perfect body. Michio, along with his mother kidnap Aki, and take her to his warehouse studio - there he states his aim to create a new genre of art, made by and for the blind that is based upon the sensation of touch alone.

As Aki begins to bring deception and manipulation into the mother-son relationship, things begin to spiral out of control, their relationship develops into a strangely symbiotic form, that increasingly leads to a masochistic tryst. As their depravity progresses, the masochistic tendencies become more dangerous (which could easily be seen as absolute influence on Jennifer Lynch's famous failure, Boxing Helena (1993) - it would be surprising if she had not seen it).

Most of the film is set within the cavernous, yet claustrophobic warehouse, which lends an air of stage play. However, the production design is absolutely beautiful, with abstractions of lighting, and the walls covered with hundreds of clay body parts - over sized eyes, noses, legs etc, - of all the women he has previously touched. It is a very interesting film, that will endure for it's psychotic and debasing character studies, and the destruction of the traditional family unit.

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There are few films as psychosexually unnerving as MOJU, a visually arresting Japanese art-house classic which illustrates a blind sculptor's darkly sexual "idee fixe", and a young woman's metamorphosis of mind and body. This is erotica of a tenebrous nature rarely explored in films, and will surely rouse reproach in today's politically sensitive milieu for its limning of male-induced female disempowent. Initially a resistant captive, she yields gradually to her oppressor, eventuating with the willful(and eager) ultimate surrender of every aspect of her being.

A disquieting sadomasochistic fever-dream, MOJU is also underscored with violative elements of a strangely touching, almost fragile intimacy which develops between the two key characters...a dynamic of tenderness and firebrand which works well. Iconographically, it's a unique and forceful film, transpiring chiefly within the darkness of an expansive subterrane with black walls which exhibit floor-to-ceiling reliefs in depiction of various body parts. A massive, abstractly sculpted female nude is the central fixture, which serves as a bedstead of sorts. The high contrast of these ghostly-white effigies against the black walls creates a surreal illusion of free-floating entities in the crepuscule of space...it's an appropriately asomatous stage for the bizarre 'mise en scene' at hand, and contributes to the the film's abstruse semblance.

Individuals of offroad aesthetic tastes should enjoy this unexampled and very memorable conception...explore it, and you *will* be affected in a spectrum of ways.

8/10...Recommended.

The only 'pinku' film I'd seen before this one was Masaru Konuma's Wife to be Sacrificed, but that didn't prepare me for the oddity of this Japanese 'classic'! Quite what the writers and directors were on is anyone's guess, but whatever it was; it lead to them creating an interesting and unique film that is memorable thanks to it's strange storyline and the way that the ideas are presented without a lot of fuss, which only increases the potency of what the film has to say. The basis of the story is sadomasochism, but director Yasuzo Masumura seems to want to go further as the pleasure-pain idea that S&M is based on is completely overruled by the idea of absolute pleasure through the sense of touch. The film focuses on a blind sculptor who, along with his mother kidnaps a young model after he heard some young kids talking about how exquisite she is. He takes her to his warehouse, which is filled with huge statues and naturally she wants to escape as soon as possible. After a couple of failed attempts, however, she begins to buy into the sculptor's ideas, and soon develops his fixation.

This film definitely is shocking, but not because of any large amount of gore or particularly brutal sex scenes. Director Yasuzo Masumura has done an amazing thing in that he's made a film that is shocking thanks to the ideas that it promotes. Naturally, there's a fair amount of nudity; but it's very soft and clearly wasn't what the director valued most when it came to making this film. There is a rather visceral sequence towards the end which is sure to get the audience cringing, but it's not the most shocking thing about the film - which again is amazing since this would have been the standout in most other movies like this. The atmosphere is surreal throughout, and this is good as it allows the director to throw in just about anything and it comes off as being believable in spite of the fact that a lot of the ideas in the film are really quite ridiculous. I always find it difficult to judge things like acting when a film is subtitled; but the lead duo are at least believable, while Yasuzo Masumura's cinematography and attention to detail is the finishing touch that makes the film what it is. Overall, Blind Beast is a bizarre oddity that verges on brilliance. Well worth seeing!

The career of Japanese director Yasuzo Masumura is littered with provocative and disturbing gems which plunge the viewer into the shadow of civilisation to explore the darkest, most twisted, aspects of the human condition. 'Manji' (1964) tells the story of a lesbian love-triangle, dark wartime romance 'Red Angel' ('Akai Tenshi', 1966) is epically bleak, and 'Irezumi' (1966) is a story of bitter vengeance wrecking a woman's soul. However, even among such subversive company 'Moju' ('Blind Beast', 1969) is not only the most bizarre and freakish in his oeuvre, but one of the most psychologically disconcerting films in cinema.

An adaptation of the story of the same name by famed Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo, whose stories were known for what became known as "eroguronansensu", ("eroticism, grotesque, nonsense"), 'Blind Beast' begins with a young model called Aki (Mako Midori) who is soon abducted by Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), a blind sculptor with an obsessive fetish with exploring the female form through the sense of touch. He takes her to his warehouse, which has been grotesquely adorned with various sculptures of over-sized female body parts (lips, eyes, breasts) and a centre-piece of a giant nude, where a bizarre sado-masochistic exploration of their respective psyches is undertaken.

It is surprising and refreshing that, in a cultural landscape that has made torture porn a mainstream genre, a film like 'Moju' still manages to unnerve, and indeed does so in a deeper, more penetrating way, than any gore-laden splatter flick. What makes the film so unsettling for me is that the psychology of the characters is so rich with different layers of perversity that the boundaries that define each of them shift throughout the film before finally merging in an infernal, transcendent symbiosis which collapses the distinction between Michio and Aki, captive and captor, as well as pleasure and pain.

However, while the grotesque eroticism of the film's bizarre premise is by itself discomforting, the cinematography and music are equally haunting and evoke a surreal, nightmare ambiance which captures the claustrophobic internal landscape of the characters perfectly. All told, the film is a compelling hallucinogenic journey through a realm of taboo and, while it may not appeal to all tastes, is certainly recommended for those with a fascination with the darker aspects of the human heart as well as those that enjoy films with genuine artistic aspirations rather than films that merely wish to entertain.

There are sometimes films which are depraved for the sake of being depraved. There is some seriously disturbing stuff happening on the screen but the progression of the narrative to reach that extreme stage seems so contrived that you ultimately end up somewhat dissatisfied in the end!

Based on Rampo Edogawa's story, Yasuzo Masumura's "Blind Beast" (1969) falls in this category. Michio (Eiji Funakoshi) is a blind sculptor (blind since birth) who has, over the years, developed the "sense of touch" to the fullest to satisfy or please himself. All other senses like sound, smell and sight are of no use to him because they aren't the real deal and "sight" he has never known! He has come to learn a lot about how things may look and has developed his own understanding of the forms of various objects around him. Most notably he has become obsessed with the female body as he finds it the most beautiful creation and feeling up the female body parts gives him the most pleasure(!). He has a studio built out of a warehouse and it contains a lot of sculptures of the female body and the individual parts as he has perceived them using his sense of touch! And now he has made "pioneering the art of touch" his life's mission! "An art form for the blind, by the blind" as he describes it!

Enter beautiful model Aki (Mako Midori), stories of whose beautiful body Michio has heard! A desire to feel up Aki's exquisite anatomy and to use her as a model for his latest sculpture drives Michio into kidnapping her with the help of his mother and holding her captive in his studio. Aki tries her best to flee but is overpowered by the blind sculptor and his mother. Amidst the labyrinth of giant female body parts including eyes, lips, nose, breasts, hands, legs, he starts building a sculpture, feeling up a reluctant Aki once in a while and then moulding his clay accordingly!

Aki starts thinking up ways to escape and even makes several attempts to trick the mother-son duo into letting her go. But a dramatic change of events turns this kidnap drama into a strange tale of macabre fetishism, as the kidnapped starts identifying with her captor and finds herself embracing his perverse ways…..

"Blind Beast" surely has the power to grip from its very first frame. The initial few sequences after the kidnapping are very well filmed and give a distinctly eerie and claustrophobic feel as Aki fumbles and stumbles in the surreal studio full of sculpted body parts. It is also commendable that the film doesn't follow the oft-trodden path that kidnap dramas usually take. The final half hour takes an entirely different direction and that's a good thing. What isn't very appealing, however, is the abrupt manner in which that direction is taken! The jump or transition is somewhat half-baked. It is not entirely unusual for kidnap dramas to portray their victims as utterly stupid and clumsy idiots whose repeated attempts to escape always predictably fail, because if the escape really happens, then there is nothing left to film! "Blind Beast"'s Aki is no different, as in spite of some clever tricks she plays to fool the mother-son duo whilst trying to escape, she always manages to bungle up in the end. That's not all, what's more frustrating is how she even gets overpowered by a completely blind man and sometimes even misses some blatantly obvious chances of getting the better of him….all for the sake of movie continuity perhaps?

It also doesn't help that the otherwise efficient blind person who is very adept at sensing a presence from their smell, footsteps and breathing sounds, lacks consistency and behaves in the clunkiest manner at times. Towards the third act, as the film gets to its focal point in a bizarre twist to the proceedings, we, the audiences wonder…how did things even get so far? It just doesn't quite cut it.

But for all its worth, "Blind Beast" is a watchable film and manages to disturb the viewer in the final act, with terrific performances from the two leads Mako Midori and Eiji Funakoshi. One wonders though, whether this film was an excuse for the filmmaker and the lead actor to simply to feed their nasty appetite of fondling their lead woman, because moments when she ISN'T groped in this film are few and far between!

Score: 7/10.