Strange Circus

I started to watch this because Netflix suggested it. I used to love to go to the movies and look for good Hollywood material but nowadays it's scarce. This movie (and the ones like it) are the reason why I still believe movies are art.

This is a piece that will make you struggle to find out what is actually happening. As other reviewers mentioned, it does have its piece of sex, incest and violence, but it is never the focus. The movie uses those resources to make you understand what the protagonist is going through.

It will linger in your mind for several days, and I think that is the greatest compliment a work can get.

It starts a little slow, but it gets better... all the way to the end when you actually think it is going too fast. Do yourself a favor and watch this with an open mind. It's like pure oxygen in the middle of Hollywood pollution.

The movie is weird, insane, controversial, challenging and as the title itself says, strange.

I was preparing my brain to watch this because after reading the reviews, I knew I'm up for a good psychological thriller. And yes, to anyone who hasn't seen this yet, you should set your mind that you'll be watching a masterpiece. This will set your bars higher for psychological thriller movies. You need to focus and go beyond the erotic scenes if only to find out that this movie is well-crafted, well-thought, and well-directed one. This branch of movie-making(what they refer to as ero-gro) has kinda grown on me. Perfected by a montage of scenes and a puzzle of events integrated for a quest to bind the movie to a whole, make sure you don't miss a scene. The movie features a play of scene-shifting..luring and confusing the viewers which is a plus for those who have short attention span. From a sex scene you are then transported to a circus ride, cut to a girl who becomes her mother, to a picture of a lifeless naked woman, to a bunch of circus performers, and I could go on and on.

This movie is an extremist one. It will show the sex scenes leaving nothing to imagination, steeled by realistic moans and very accurate portrayal by the actors. If the story can't keep you up, the amount of sex will. It will also show extreme levels of no-holds-barred morbidity, goriness and insanity. It also depicts extreme levels of themes only a masterpiece could feature. Actually, I found the movie creepy. No there are no white ghosts or jump scares on this one, but creepy in a way that you would start questioning the sanity of the director. He's not human.

Gathering the viewers' attention through a sequence of events that could possibly be the worst thing that could happen to a family, the movie caters to viewers of every genre, of any age. What I actually find appalling is having a minor(the girl who played young Mitsuko) play the part of having to witness and digest such morbid scenes. Isn't that disturbing to begin with?

The premise of the film as a psycho-thriller is to bring out the inquisitive, theoretical selves of the watchers. You start questioning why did such scene happen? Why did such character say those lines? Which one was the dream? Which one was reality? What's the bigger picture? Who's who? Who's THE ultimate character? This movie is a challenge. And the ending steeled it. The movie possesses the basic protocols of good movie-making; that is, a good beginning to introduce the conflict and hold the viewers' attention, a climax which highlights the main conflict/s and leaving a handful of questions to our minds, and a surreal ending that will answer these questions(not to mention leave us dumbfounded). I can't even write a synopsis of the movie. Just thinking of writing it seems very exhaustive. I can't put into words the details of the movie. That's how complicated and well-developed the story is. Story-telling won't do.

The themes of the movie are also as disturbing as the scenes itself. Incest is the most noticeable theme of the movie. But the inclusion of other minimal themes (but still disturbing as they are) such as dismemberment, revenge, self-denial and what appears to be schizophrenic characters all add to the complexity of the movie. Hell even the soundtrack was creepily weird. What brought this movie to its high level though was the acting. Its like everything just fell into place. A deep story and stellar acting from the cast(especially Masumi Miyazaki who perfectly played 3 personas), this movie is undeniably a masterpiece. 10/10.

Being as there is only 1 current review (as of November 2006), and a bad one at that, I feel compelled to write something. If you like to have a director mess with you, don't pass this one up. I'm not sure that this tops 2002's Suicide Circle (or Suicide Club) from Sono, but it's up there. I won't go into the plot here, but if you're into psychological thrillers or even more specifically the recent Asian stuff with those lovable twists like Takashi Miike's Audition or Chanwook Park's Oldboy (which I thought was overrated, though still good), this here's for you. Definitely not for those who would be offended by an underage actress involved in explicit scenes. What else? The cinematography in the first half is good too, as there are some nice shots during the horrific atmosphere of the story of Michuko. The 2nd half is all about the *unfolding* so to speak. I definitely need to watch it again.

... if you like this movie. Neither is the director ... at least I don't think he is. If you watch this movie you might ask yourself these questions, because this is not your usual fair, it is extreme and out there.

I don't even know what to make of it. But I do know, that even though I was disgusted at times, I also was amazed by this movie. Which says much about the craft of the director on work here, who will take you on an emotional journey.

This journey will not be an easy one and you probably won't enjoy it (in fact, you are supposed not to enjoy it). And although you know you watch bad things (even with children involved in them, but never explicitly shown), you get the feeling that this movie is great. Not for the faint of heart then, but definitely for people who are open to challenges!

When i saw Suicide Club for the first time i knew Sion Sono would come to be a director i would look out for, and with Strange Circus he delivers, that's not to say that you will automatically like this one if you loved suicide club, because this is is something different.

If suicide club was his pitch black pulpy look at Japanese culture, this is his nightmarish avant garde look on a dysfunctional family. This is art-house the way it should be, confrontational, engaging and intelligent.

This is at some points extremely unwatchable as it deals with themes such as incest, but the way it is portrayed is absolutely stylish but still jaw droppingly tense.

It reminded me of David Lynch and Alejandro Jorodowsky because of the dreamlike sequences and the constant pondering on what is real and what isn't.

This movie is shot beautifully, even Kubrick came to mind at some scenes. Without spoiling anything i can say that this movie is very open to interpretation and it works and many levels.

I would highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes deeply psychological drama, horror and art-house combined), but a warning, this is not for the faint of heart and i can really understand why people would condemn this film as perverted trash (such as people will condemn Lars Von Triers Antichrist), although i genuinely think that anyone with a love for cinema would grasp the deeper things this movie has to offer and will enjoy the beauty in this nightmarish vision.