Strange Circus

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.

This is a very fine and brave film but so extreme and at times confusing that it lost me at times. I see the film has won awards in Montreal and Berlin but I can safely say that it could not even be shown legally in the UK. Even apart from the extended sequences of implied and actual child sex abuse the degree of violence, especially when shown in a sexual context would have the jolly BBFC boys in somewhat of a lather. With all the effort put in by the director and leading actress, Masumi Miyazaki, who is sensational in her roles, it is a shame that the resulting film is not more coherent. Possibly it is because the material is so extreme that I tended to distance myself a little and thereby lose the plot a little, but only a second viewing will settle that one and I'm not up to that right now!

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.

"Strange Circus" starts out as the story of 12-year-old Mitsuko,who's being sexually abused by her father Gozo and terrorized by her jealous mother Sayuri.Mitsuko is imprisoned in a cello case and forced to watch her parents' intimate liaisons through a peephole.The strange abuse causes Mitsuko to blur the distinction between her mother's pleasure and her own pain.When her mom dies after falling down the stairs,Mitsuko starts believing she is her mother.Sion Sono's return to ero-guro tradition is very stylish and sexually perverse.This strange film even offers lashings of paedophilia on display,fortunately they are not graphic.The carnival atmosphere of circus is well-developed and there is a nice amount of grue.Fans of more dream-like transgressive cinema should give it a look.

... 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!