Female Teacher: In Front of the Students

What's to be said about Yasuro Uegaki's Female Teacher: In Front of the Students (just out from Impulse/Synapse) is all good. Very, very good, in fact.

Nikkatsu, the old Japanese film studio that, after sixty years, suddenly turned dark and erotic to make ends meet, has, admittedly, made its share of lame efforts such as Nympho Diver and I Like It From Behind, both recently released by Impulse/Synapse. I suppose some folks bought them, but, for mine, they have little appeal because they're doing nothing that hundreds of British and American softcore porn flicks haven't already done.

You can't say the same about Nikkatsu flicks like Assault - Jack The Ripper, Rape!, White Rose Campus - Then, Everybody Gets Raped, Sex Hunter - Wet Target, Sex Hunter (the Ikeda film), Secret Chronicle - She Beast Market, and Zoop Up - Rape Site. All of these feature exploitation elements that are very culture-specific, and do not shun the sticky mix of sexual violence and eroticism that many Western films are afraid of.  Although S/M is being mainstreamed (and reduced to blandly flavored vanilla) by works of dubious literary merit such as 'Fifty Shades of Grey' (a massive bestseller), its harsher, more incendiary essence has been shaved away.

Nothing is shaved away in Impulse/Synapse's Female Teacher: In Front of the Students, a truly subversive Nikkatsu flick that some would describe as "troubling" for its perspective on rape. To take its politics too seriously would be to misunderstand its intentions. It is, afterall, a skin flick for a skin flick audience, so it takes a fantasy often imagined by women to its natural end point. If you think it condones the view that a raped woman can be sexually charged by the resulting trauma, you're projecting too hard. This is fantasy Japan-style, not reality.

The pretty Rushia Santo is 'Reiko', a new teacher at an elite high school. Forced to discipline a group of spoilt brats led by the particularly nasty Takuya (Toru Nakane), she finds herself intimidated by the boy. After an unnerving exchange with the group, Reiko is raped in one of the school's showers. Humiliated, she doesn't report the rape, but she keeps a piece of a jigsaw puzzle dropped at the scene by the masked rapist. Over the next few days, she attempts to identify her attacker, and flashes back to key images of the rape, but  her search is sidelined by a series of highly erotic seductions that relight the fire of the incident.

Like Toshiharu Ikeda's little-seen Sex Hunter (not be confused with Sex Hunter - Wet Target) and the notorious Captured For Sex 2, Female Teacher: In Front of the Students exudes an atmosphere of sexual nihilism and abandon that is downright intoxicating. Director Uegaki demonstrates a superb eye and flair for dark eroticism, and creates a seventy minute masterpiece that sucks us into a sexual maelstrom while never ignoring the story's emotional journey. Santo is excellent as a woman on an odyssey of deep exploration, and delivers a strong emotional, physical, and intensely sexual performance as a teacher torn between tradition and the delicious call of the dark.

The film has an amazing look. It's gritty and beautiful all at once, and the compositions, subtle camera moves, and extreme close-ups are striking. The sex runs the gamut from hetero to lesbian, and there is a potent threeway worked into the mix. The narrative never flags, and the sense of anxiety experienced by Reiko is always felt by the audience.

A great selection from Impulse/Synapse, and, hopefully, a sign of the direction future releases will take. Films like this offer a rare and exotic glimpse into the human mind, and underline why nobody does it better than the Japanese.

The Bunny Game

 The Bunny Game is a variation on a well-trodden scenario, but it's elevated somewhat by a stark sense of realism, a solid black and white grade, some inventive editing, and an engaging lead performance.

Recently banned in the UK due, no doubt, to its blending of violence (physical and psychological) and hardcore sexual imagery, it's a worthy addition to a growing sub-genre that is often labeled "torture porn". Patronizing labels undermine the merits of individual works, creating the impression that these films are as generic as porn loops (actually, even porn loops are not as generic as they seem).

 Cinema and literature have a rich history of stories involving the capture and ill treatment of human beings for sundry purposes. We can go way back to 1932's The Most Dangerous Game to locate a narrative based on a madman's treatment of compromised humanity. John Fowles' The Collector (film and book)  traversed these streets, too, with great success.

Contemporary titles of this ilk such as the August Underground movies, Hostel (I,II,III), Captured, Scrapbook, Mum and Dad, Martyrs, Seed, and Senseless owe as much to Japanese cinema of the 60's, 70's, and 80's as they do to looser Western influences.

Many of Koji Wakamatsu films such as Go Go Second Time Virgin ('69), Diary of a Japanese Rapist ('67),  The Embryo Hunts in Secret ('66) and The Man Who Assaulted 13 People aka Serial Rapist ('78)  re-drew the parameters of international cinema and were later followed by works sharing the visceral (though not the political) themes of the director.

  Titles now familiar to us such as Captured for Sex 2, Wife To Be Sacrificed, Tumbling Doll of Flesh, Lolita Vibrator Torture, Please Rape Me Once More, Assault Jack the Ripper, and the first two Guinea Pig movies owe much to the works of Wakamatsu and directors such as Kinya Ogawa,  Mamoru Watanabe, and Hiroshi Mukai. A new generation of cinematic explorers including Hisayaso Sato, Genji Nakamura, and Banmei Takahashi followed these taboo busters.

It would not be accurate to categorize the films of these Japanese directors as "torture porn", despite the fact that much of their work was extreme and confronting.

As in any genre, there are good and bad ambassadors...

 



Which brings us full circle to Adam Rehmeier's The Bunny Game.

As noted above, the scenario is well-trodden, but the treatment is fresher than some. A prostitute (Bunny), played with extraordinary commitment by Rodleen Getsic, is having a shit of a week. The blowjob she performs in the opening scene seems typical of her day, as does her mean-spirited client. After servicing a variety of vile johns, Bunny is left high and dry when a client rips her off. At a low ebb, it's not surprising that she agrees to jump into a truck with 'Hogg' (Jeff R. Renfro). Her decision is clearly a mistake from the get-go, and how this plays out makes up the bulk of the movie.

 Interesting choice of villain here, and clearly influenced by Samuel R. Delany's searing novel, Hogg ('69), a highly controversial and much-banned work (reviewed on this blog long ago). Delany's novel is focused on a perverted homosexual rapist and killer whose average day includes molesting a young hitchhiker, driving with shit-filled pants, and subjecting everybody he meets to his filth and psychotic violence. Only recently, the character's name was also used in  Adam Mason's Pig ('10) , a similar film that failed all the tests this one passes.

Although The Bunny Game has its fair share of sexual abuse and mental torture, Rehmeier and his artistic cohorts don't just subject us to to variations of the same sex act. Using an inventive editing style, the film explores Hogg's addiction to the orgasmic euphoria previous crimes created for him, and we're shown his obsessive reliving of the crimes using  garments and other objects he's souvenired. The part memory plays for this psychopath and his fetishizing of the tactile adds a layer to the narrative that separates it from swill such as Pig.

Jeff R. Renfro (Hogg), a real truck driver who donated his truck to the cause, is amateur in the best way here because he plays it straight and real. With his performance married to Getsic's, The Bunny Game is an uncomfortable slice of authentic vice in which the line between reality and fiction is difficult to discern. It needs to be noted that Getsic's performance is the primary reason for experiencing this film, and I hope to see more of her (so to speak).

It was a wise move to establish Bunny's character with well directed and cut montages of her at work. The film's stark, black and white imagery, and doom-laden tone recalled, for me, Noboru Tanaka's Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market ('79) (reviewed on this blog), a brilliant Japanese marriage of the erotic and, yes, Italian neo-realism. It was also presented  in black and white.

Until recently, The Bunny Game has been available uncut on PAL dvd. In the last few weeks, a company called Autonomy Pictures (its principals being Derek Curl, David Gregory, and Lewis Tice)  has picked up US rights to the movie, and will bow it in July, 2012.

Deep Inside A Sex Pervert's Diary

Currently experiencing a relentless illness, so posts have been spotty at best for the last few months. Reading has been difficult. I've been unable to focus on anything for more than five minutes.

I sense recovery is finally afoot since I was able to get through Joji Numata's A Sex Pervert's Diary in less than 24 hours. I consumed this book like a hungry alligator and relished its raw, nihilistic truth.

The book shares common ground with Brett Eastin Ellis's American Psycho in that the focus here is also on minutia -- in this case, minutia associated with erotomania (or sexual obsession).

The book is initially structured like a first person piece of non-fiction in which the narrator describes his obsessions and fetishes in excruciatingly fine detail. You get the sense that he might be a reformed pervert (and I mean that in the nicest way) who's done some jail time and has finally seen the "error" of his ways. Thankfully, this isn't the case.

Although I have no proof, fact is surely molesting fiction here, and it is the book's blending of an authentic Japanese perspective on girl trolling with ultra-deviant fantasies that makes it such a ripping good read. Although it is focused exclusively on a thirty-seven year old Japanese man's attempt to wrestle with his erotic demons, the book will speak to men everywhere. It is, in fact, a chillingly truthful expose of the way men think and what drives them.

I've always said that if women were privy to the carnal carnival of the male mind, the majority would board planes en masse and flee in terror from the oncoming scourge. To be fair, a minority of honest women would remain behind and probably enjoy the party. Both types of women will take different lessons from the hot literary lava bubbling inside the covers of this gem.

'As always, the sight of a naked girl was disappointing at first,' Numata writes. 'The anticipation and fantasizing had built up my expectations to a pitch which couldn't possibly be matched by the real thing. The moment I'm faced with the reality of a woman's naked body, I only see her defects. But soon the imperfections no longer seem as important. The mere fact that I am seeing her in such a shameful condition gives me a thrill which goes beyond any aesthetic satisfaction I might derive from admiring a body's beauty.'

The Japanese definition of "shame" in a constant through the book, carrying the weight of a potent aphrodisiac.

Numata's describing of the vagina as a "clam" makes for numerous memorable passages. His ruminations on men's bizarre and contrary relationship with the clam is often hilarious, disturbing, and priceless.

'They should hold contests to see which girl has the most attractive clam. And they should show nothing but the clam, never mind about her face or the rest of her body. What if an unattractive, chubby little slut had a gem of an omanko (vagina)? Wouldn't that be a nice irony? And then we should be able to see all those omankos of all those beautiful girls with their perfect bodies. Wrinkly blue-gray blubber lips hidden away down between their legs. They should go around with photographs of their clams hanging around their necks with a caption proclaiming: "This is what we really look like inside." Omankos are basically ugly things, and smelly to boot. If men weren't programmed to be triggered into lust by the sight of them, we would avoid them like the plague. You don't know what it's like when a girl is all hot and aroused, in heat, and she spreads her thighs before you to reveal that ugly clam. Basically, a man buries his penis into it just to avoid looking at it.'

Personally, I find vaginas to be extraordinarily enchanting (with some exceptions), so I'm not with Numata on this issue -- still, it is his stubborn adherence to a dizzying point of view that makes every word of this book a chewable feast.

Like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, the protagonist pervert of A Sex Pervert's Diary is a supreme provocateur, and you will not tire of his non-stop ranting and instructive commentary on everything sexual from upskirt photography to changing room stalking to teenage prostitution to fetishes red, yellow, brown and cotton.

First published in Japan in 2003, the book became a bestseller immediately and continues to sell with the speed of a drunk girl's panties being yanked to her knees.

Highly recommended with warnings for sensitive souls.

The book is published in the US by iUniverse, Inc.

Translation is by Thomas Boggs.

Grotesque Decision of the UK Censor

Because it was just banned by the UK censor, Grotesque is getting plenty of press right now.

It was released in Japan earlier this year, and hit the gray market circuit pretty quickly.

Some scribes have talked about it being "influenced by Saw and Hostel". Let's back up a bit, shall we folks?

James Wan's Saw ('04) was influenced primarily by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ('75), but many other films are referenced also. Hostel ('05) was influenced by a shitload of films including Chainsaw, Saw, Mute Witness, Deliverance, Evil Dead Trap, the Guinea Pig films (Hideshi Hino's Flowers of Flesh and Blood and Devil's Experiment), and a couple of others.

Grotesque, which I saw a month or so ago, is influenced by all of the above, but you can also add Woman in the Box - Virgin Sacrifice ('85), Go Ijuuin's Captured for Sex 2 ('86), Niko Daruma (Psycho - The Snuff Reels, '98) and the repetitive Red Room ('99) films by Daisuke Yamanouchi.

Like Captured for Sex 2...

... the plot is more accurately a premise. A couple are captured and subjected to physical and mental torture. Where it differs from Captured for Sex 2 is in the way the relationship between captor and captives develops. In the '86 film, the male becomes the captor's apprentice and the film rockets to a rare psychosexual plane. No such luck here. Male and female are subjected to a catalog of gory outrages. That's pretty much it.

Should the film be banned? No. It was legally made, so it shouldn't be banned. End of argument.

After a while, it becomes monotonous. It's well shot and cut and the effects are mostly excellent. If the torture sequences had been part of the movie and not the entire movie, I would have enjoyed it more (ala Star of David - Hunting for Beautiful Girls).

But the film is what it is. Aestheticized cinematic torture. And it's certainly horror.

From imdb:

In a statement, BBFC director David Cooke said, "Unlike other recent 'torture'-themed horror works, such as the Saw and Hostel series, Grotesque features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism. The chief pleasure on offer seems to be in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake." The board said that allowing the film to be shown in Britain would put those viewing it at "risk of harm."

Cooke's take on the film is accurate. I'm not disputing that.

Where the bullshit starts is with the board's blanket psychological assessment that allowing the film to be shown in Britain would put those viewing it "at risk of harm".

The health of adults will be at risk, will it?

Did it harm members of the board? Or are they intellectually and socially above such primal influence?

And, please, please, please, can I see your concrete examples of Brits who have been "harmed" by movies in the past, Mr. Cooke?

Even better, I'll shoot you some evidence of adults "harmed" by cigarettes and alcohol (which are legal) and you can shoot me exhibits of adults "harmed" by graphic horror films (your files must be bursting).

What a bunch of arrogant bullshit.