Adoration

I could hardly regard the entire story as a kind of art, especially when I learn it based on a true story. The man who did this is disgusting, for his behaviors reveal the darkest impulse of human being, as the director introduced in the Cinema of Death DVD.

I absolutely hate the man's deed, but I have to say I adore the way the director illustrates it. He adds nothing emotional to the film, just telling the whole story out in detail, totally rationally and neatly. He does the film in a documentary way, but attention plz, it's actually not a documentary. All the horrific scenes are performed by actors.

After it, I hesitate at the question to whom I could recommend this film. If you will never be upset about the extreme dark side of human mind and are always eager to appreciate the incomprehensible crazed obsession of love, OK, then enjoy the film (but seemingly the director said the murderer is not really in love with the victim, or he will never kill her. maybe he did it not out of love, but out of selfishness).

I think the director made it not to say "right" or "wrong" to the man's mad behaviors. He just wanna record the affair in his way, then tells us about it, so everyone of us can make a judgment all by ourselves. That's why he did it in an all documental way.

"Adoration" shows the story of a Japanese young guy who's head over heels in love with a pretty young student. His love is so crazy that he decides to eat her.

I once heard somewhere this film was based on a true story. Very reassuring!

Olivier Smolders, a moviemaker from Liège, Belgium, made this black and white short film. I bought a videotape with everyone of his "spiritual exercises". I just LOVE this kind of bizarre short films! "Adoration" seems very strange in his form (totally soundless, except when the Japanese guy records his girlfriend's voice reading a novel's short passage). But you leave this film with a profound ambivalent feeling, wondering if you've attended to a wonderful love act or a piece of despair's darkness.

I recommend this one to short films aficionados and to weird, underground or gore movie fans.

Alas, "Adoration" is probably a bit difficult to find elsewhere than in Belgium.

Adoration (1987)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Bizarre Belgian film about a Japanese man who invites the woman of his dreams over to his apartment for dinner but he then decides to eat her. This film works brilliantly on a technical level but the overall movie doesn't work as well. The film is in B&W and plays out mostly silent with only the reel being able to be heard but once the cannibalism starts we then hear the dead girl saying a poem while we watch what happens to her. The film is brilliantly made and directed and the special effects are wonderfully done. We see the woman get her body parts cut off and I'm still wondering how they were able to pull this off. From Cult Epics Cinema of Death collection.

"Adoration" is loosely based on Issei Sagawa's cannibalistic murder case.In 1981 he murdered and cannibalized a Dutch woman named Renée Hartevelt.After his release Sagawa has become a minor celebrity in Japan and has made a living through the public interest on his crime.A young Japanese man invites beautiful French student to his apartment.She reads some poetry.Suddenly he shoots her in the back,dismembers her body and cannibalizes her tasty flesh.Experimental and gruesome short which looks almost like a true crime documentary.The use of silence and master shots certainly enhances truly chilling atmosphere of gloom.Can't wait to see Oliver Smolders "Nuit Noire".8 out of 10.