Wakamatsu's Caterpillar

In Koji Wakamatsu's Caterpillar (Kyatapira, 2010), the wife of a returned Japanese soldier is expected to treat her husband as a hero, a "god soldier" -- trouble is, the bloke's an absolute cunt. This is one of the best films yet from Wakamatsu, and you'd be hard put to find anything that deals with the subject of war, duty, patriotism, and the definition of  "hero"  as beautifully, directly, and metaphorically  as this does.

Based on a short story by Edogawa Rampo, the film's title is taken from the condition of the solider. His arms and legs have been blown off in combat and his face has horrendous scarring. He resembles a caterpillar, and sleeps, eats, and screws like one. A physically similar "caterpillar" appeared in Todd Browning's Freaks. He was known as 'The Human Torso'. This creature's name is Lieutenant Tadashi Kurokawa (Keigo Kusuya), a decorated military man who went to war representing the hopes and dreams of his small village.

Wakamatsu and his scriptwriters make some telling decisions about how they present Kurokawa from the outset, and these clarify the director's desire to get us to question what wartime heroism actually is.  Is raping, setting fire to villages, and shooting civilians something to celebrate?  The film opens with an unidentified Japanese soldier raping a Chinese woman while her house burns down.  We then cut to the soldier's homecoming. Clearly, the rapist was Kurokawa, our "hero". Bestowed with honors by the village and the military, the physically devastated returnee is given the name "god soldier" and wheeled off to a life of dependence. Although the Japanese officials assure him of their support, it doesn't materialize. Instead, the man's troubled wife, Shigeko (Shinobu Terajima in an award-winning performance), is left to nurse and feed him.

Things take a little while to get ugly between the two. The limbless Kurokawa, starved of sexual affection, gets his fill from Shigeko. It's just a little oral at first, but it progresses to intercourse in assorted positions. The fornication scenes are suitably bizarre and convincing, and give the film a delightfully grotesque edge. They reminded me of the late director Teruo Ishii's best work.  Eventually, the god soldier's demands become abusive and unreasonable, and Shigeko is forced to question the true meaning of  "patriotic duty".  Unable to complain about her situation, Shigeko does finds ways to equalize the relationship. One of these is to wheel her husband around the village like a carnival exhibit and force him to watch able-bodied people going about their day. Other options include starvation and neglect.

As described above, Kurokawa is depicted from the outset as less than a hero. Introduced as a rapist, our sympathy for him is certainly not overt. During the couple's confrontations, we also learn that Kurokawa beat Shigeko frequently even before he went to war. The writer in me feels that the film's drama might have been better served if Kurokawa had been a good man turned into something bad by his wartime experiences -- simply not mentioning that he beat Shigeko before the war would have achieved this.  It would have intensified our ambivalence about Shigeko's treatment of him also and created a greater moral quandary for her. But since the man is and always was a violent cunt, our sympathies barely shift. War simply made a bad man worse. Dramatically, that's not as interesting. As material for Wakamatsu's thematic intentions, it serves its purpose, however. I sense that's more the point.

The film is what it is, though, and I liked it for the most part. Although digital technology has produced some extraordinary looking films recently, this is not one of them. It's certainbly adequate, but the images are a bit murky at times or too stark at other times. There's no texture or "feel" to the film's look, so I always felt that an opportunity was missed.

The same source material, Rampo's short story, was recently adapted by director Hisayasu Sato for the anthology Rampo Noir (Ranpo jigoku, 2005). A grotesque, grisly, and beautiful collection of short stories based on the writer's fascinating work, Sato's Caterpillar is the stand-out piece. It diverges, however, from Wakamatsu's take, in that the returned soldier's limbs are hacked off not by war, but by his psychotic wife in order to prevent his return to soldiering. The expected consequences of THAT you need to see for yourself.  

The Hong Kong-based Panorama Corporation  is the first distributor out of the gate with an English-subtitled Blu-ray of Caterpillar.   Presentation quality is good and cover art is suitably bizarre. A French DVD with English subtitles was issued in early May, 2011.

The amazingly prolific and original Wakamatsu is already knee-deep in his next production; again,
Shinobu Terajima stars.

Caterpillar is highly recommended.

Towards the very end of 2011 and into 2012, New York-based Kino-Lorber will release Caterpillar and Wakamatsu's brilliant United Red Army both theatrically and on DVD in the U.S. Please support these releases.

Another upcoming release from Kino-Lorber is My Joy (Schastye Mo), one of my favorite films of 2011.

Their website is http://www.kinolorber.com

Not The Lighter Side of Cannibalism

The crimes of Issei Sagawa have been pretty well documented.

In Paris, he invited a female student (Renee Hartevelt) to his apartment, killed her, slept with her, and ate her over the course of a week. Although the French authorities caught up with the flesh-loving fiend and incarcerated him, his wealthy, influential father petitioned for his release and he was spirited back to Japan. There, he was retried for his crimes, found insane, and released back onto the streets.

In the subsequent decades, he has worked as a painter, become a celebrity restaurant reviewer, and starred in a number of pink films (and documentaries).

In the totally nutty 7 Days of Sagawa, he recreates his crimes on videotape and agrees to have his non-existent athletic abilities scrutinized for purposes of mockery. He is clocked running (?) a single man race at a large sports stadium. He dribbles a basketball and drops it. He huffs and puffs his through an obstacle course, and attempts the long jump with disastrous consequences. Watching such a puny, sickly gnome participating in track sports provokes a mixture of incredulity and sadness. Later in the show, a hidden camera records Sagawa on a blind date with two unsuspecting schoolgirls. The most outrageous section is when the girls learn that their Romeo has a flesh-loving resume.

Sagawa starred in the odd Unfaithful Wife - Shameful Torture aka The Bedroom (Uwakizuma: Chijokuzeme; '92) from prolific and notorious pink director Hisayasu Sato, the unique talent behind Naked Blood, Lolita Vibrator Torture, and Survey Map of a Paradise Lost. He also has a small part in my friend Tomoaki Hosoyama's A Weatherman (Otenki-oneesan; '96). No doubt about it, Sagawa is a bizarre and troubling blip on Japanese subculture.

On top of these achievements, he also appeared in an X-rated movie (from the notorious Bazooka!) and released his own CD (see below).

Recently, I came across Sagawa's first person account of his flesh eating. I consider myself quite jaded when it comes to such material, but I must admit to not being unmoved by the thoughts and details below. My stomach did a somersault more than once.

If anybody is considering cannibalism, the reality of the act may provoke reconsideration.

We pick up the account after Sagawa has shot his victim. The accompanying art, which is rather good, is courtesy of Sagawa himself.

In his own words:

Afterwards I sleep with her.

Next morning she is still here. She doesn't smell bad. Today I must finish cutting up her body.I have to put it into suitcases and sink it in the lake. It will be her grave.

I touch the cold body again and I wonder where I should start. I start to cut off all the meat before amputating the limbs. While I cut her calf I suddenly want to taste it. I see the beautiful red meat beneath the fat. I grasp her knee and her ankle, and tear it with my teeth. It is tender. I slowly chew and savor it. After eating most of the calf I look at myself in the mirror. There is grease all over my face. And then I start to eat at random. I bite her little toe. It still smell of her feet. I stab the knife into her arch and see the red meat deep inside. I thrust my fingers inside and dig out the meat and put it in my mouth. It tastes okay. Then I stab the knife into her armpit. Ever since I saw it under her yellow sleeveless top I wondered how it would taste this good. The wonderful taste cheers me up and I devour her underarm up to the elbow.

Finally I cut off her private parts. When I touch the pubic hair it has a very bad smell. I bite her clit, but it won't come off, it just stretches. So I throw it in the frying pan and pop it in my mouth. I chew very carefully and swallow it. It is so sweet. After I swallow it, I feel her in my body and get hot. I turn the body over and open her buttocks, revealing her anus. I scoop it out with my knife and try to put it in my mouth. It smells too much. I put it in the frying pan and throw it in my mouth. It still smells. I spit it out. I go into the next room. It smell of fat, like I've been frying a chicken.

It's been twenty-four hours now. Some huge flies hover and buzz in the bathroom. I try to chase them away, but they came back. They swarm on her face. They seem to tell me that I've lost her forever. It is no longer her. Where is she? She's gone far away. I've broken her. Like a child who breaks his toy. I try to use an electric knife to cut her body. It doesn't work. It just makes a loud sound. I use a hatchet. I strike several times. It's hard work. I strike her thigh. Her body jumps up. If she could feel, it would have hurt.

Finally the thigh separates from her body. I bite it again, like I would bite a chicken leg. Then I cut off her arms. It is even harder than the thigh. I use the electric knife again. It makes a shrill sound, like the sound of her shrill voice. It works this time. Her hand still wears a ring and a bracelet. When I see her long fingers I am driven by another impulse. I use her hand to masturbate. Her long fingers excite me.

When I'm finished I try to bite her finger. I can't. I'm disappointed. I put her hands into the plastic bag along with her legs. And then I see her face. It is still quiet. She has a small nose and a sweet lower lip. When she was alive I wanted to bite them. Now I can satisfy that desire. It's so easy to bite off her nose. As I chew the cartilage I can hear the noise. I use a knife to cut off more of the cartilage and put it in my mouth. It really doesn't taste very good. I scoop out her lower lip with my knife and put it in my mouth. It has hard skin. I decide to eat it later when I can fry it. So I put it in the refrigerator.I want her tongue. I can't open her lower jaw, but I can reach in between her teeth. Finally it comes out. I cut it off and put it in my mouth. It's hard to chew. I see my face in the mirror. Her tongue entwined with my tongue. I try to close my mouth, but her tongue slips out.

Finally I cut the skin off the tongue and taste the meat.I try to eat her eyes. It's hard for me to stab into them, though it is the easiest part of her face. I can tears coming from them. It frightens me. Her eyes are all that is left of her face. It is nearly a skull.

I decide to take out her stomach. When I stab under her navel a little fat appears and then I can see the red meat under the fat. I slice a piece of the red meat and put it on a plate. Then I stab into the stomach. The internal organs appear. There is a great length of rolled tubes and I find a gray bag at the end of the tubes. It must be the bladder. There is a strong smell as soon as I pick it up. I thrust my hand into her body cavity. There is another bag. It must be her womb. If she had lived she would have had a baby in this womb. The thought depresses me for a moment.

"The public has made me the godfather of cannibalism, and I am happy about that. I will always look at the world through the eyes of a cannibal." Issei Sagawa

Wakamatsu's Caterpillar

I have been a disciple of Koji Wakamatsu for several decades, so it is with baited breath that I await the arrival of Kyatapira (Caterpillar).

The short story it is based on was written by Edogawa Rampo, probably Japan's most respected mystery and horror writer.

Rampo penned Caterpillar in 1939 when WWII was raging. The Japanese government banned the story, fearing that it would impact negatively on the country's war effort.

The story is about a solider who returns from the war without limbs. His wife is forced to care for him, and he wriggles about like a human caterpillar. He resembles the 'human torso'in Todd Browning's seminal Freaks ('32).

It's impossible to know whether Rampo saw Freaks before writing Caterpillar; the writer was certainly heavily influenced by American culture (he changed his name from Hirai Taro to honor Edgar Allen Poe), and much of his work has a Poe and Lovecraft influence. Elements of Freaks, based on the short story by Todd Robbins, Spurs, are present in much of Rampo's work; still, his tales are still very particular to the Japanese sensibility and often explore extreme fetishism (not an arena touched on as frequently in Western genre literature).

In Japanese culture, the depiction of deformities on-screen is, to this day, controversial. Teruo Ishii's Horrors of Malformed Men ('69), based on a Rampo story, was banned from being screened in Japan for years due to its focus on less-than-perfect, unfortunate human beings.

This is Wakamatsu's first true horror film, although his approach appears to be anything but conventional.

Wakamatsu, one of the original 'Godfathers of Pink' is enjoying a renaissance of sorts following the release of his exceptional United Red Army ('07). The French have recently released a stunning box set of his work, and I'm praying (not literally!) that a company like Criterion will release an English subtitled version of this exceptional set.

Controversy has surrounded Wakamatsu for years due to his 'anarchist' connections and uncompromising filmography.

Only recently I was privileged to watch his 13-nin renzoku bôkôma (The Man Who Attacked 13 People), a raw example of utter cinematic nihilism.

In my imdb review, the first to appear on that site about the film, I wrote:

The Violent Man Who Attacked 13 People (a loose translation) is deserving of infamy for it is one of the most nihilistic pink films ever made. A chubby, bicycle-riding rapist/killer dispatches 13 people (mostly women) in a cold, bloody, detached rampage. In the first 38 minutes, 8 people die. Koji Wakamatsu, one of the Godfathers of Pink, makes no concessions to anybody in this grim exercise. The killer unloads his gun into vaginas, a man's ass, arms, legs, and heads. The film appears to be a catalog of murder and rape. There is no humor and no let-up. Only a minimalist harmonica score is heard in the quieter moments between the attacks. Shot on grainy 16mm, the tone is similar to Yojiro Takita's 1983 film "Renzoku Boko", suggesting that Takita was heavily influenced by this film. The relentlessness of the narrative draws the viewer into a process where he (the viewer) becomes anxious about the next attack. As this is a film from the esteemed director of "Go Go Second Time Virgin" and the excellent "Violated Angels", a poetry emerges from the images that separates it from standard pink fare. Just as the film dryly documents the slaughter of more than a dozen people, so will I right now: 1 housewife is murdered and raped in her apartment, 1 young girl is murdered and raped by the river, a couple are stalked "Maniac"-style while making love in a car, 1 girl in uniform is abducted and abused, another couple are attacked, shot, and raped by the same river, 1 girl is invited to a rooftop where she is raped and shot, a couple are raped and shot in their apartment, 1 drunk girl is shot and raped, 1 girl is killed outside a toilet block, 1 girl is dragged into marshland and murdered and raped. A final girl, the killer's 14th, meets a different fate. It should be noted that the sequence where the killer stalks the lovers in a car has several shots that may have been duplicated by Bill Lustig in "Maniac"; one, in particular, of the killer peering through the window at the couple as they make love, is uncannily similar. Perhaps Lustig saw this film, though I doubt it -- it is quite obscure. This is certainly the first film I know of documenting the exploits of a dysfunctional, bicycle-riding serial rapist/killer and is one of the purest horror films I have seen. Highly, highly recommended. It is a type of cinema that many people fear, yet a small minority admire.

A filmmaker of immense talent and singular, brutal vision, Wakamatsu has directed close to 100 features since 1963.

Only Go Go Second Time Virgin and Ecstasy of the Angels have been widely seen in the US and UK.

The director has made dozens of notable features including Sex Jack, Violated Angels...

Dark Story of a Japanese Rapist, 100 Years of Torture - The History, Sacred Mother Kannon, The Embryo Hunts in Secret (one of the most evocative titles ever conceived)...

... and the magnificent Black Beast of Lust.

Wakamatsu's output is virtually an industry unto itself!

Caterpillar is of particular interest to me because I adore the short story it is based on, and share the author's fondness for freaks, deformities, and marginalized humans.

The story has been filmed already (and beautifully) by another brilliant Japanese director of extreme nihilism, Hisayasu Sato.

Rampo Jigoku (aka Rampo Noir, 05) was an impressive anthology pic based on the works of Rampo; Sato's 'Caterpillar' installment (titled Imomushi here) is the best of the bunch.

My imdb review ran as follows:

This is an anthology film comprising four stories. The third story, Caterpillar, directed by Hisayasu Sato (Lolita Vibrator Torture, Naked Blood) is the most horrific of the bunch. It plays like a big budget Guinea Pig episode and focuses on a man whose limbs have been lopped off by his wife. He wriggles about like a caterpillar, spewing bile and oozing pus, and enjoys a spot of cunnilingus now and then. The lighting is beautiful, the production design is handsome, and Sato has never directed anything so lush. The other three stories are also interesting, although the first story, about a devious mirror maker, is very slow. Final story, about a weird man's obsession with an actress, possesses a surreal quality and is dazzling to look at. The fourth story is so short it's hardly worth commenting on. All stories were inspired by Japan's Edgar Allen Poe, Edogowa Rampo, a splendid author of dark tales who was inspired enough by Poe to take his name. Terrific to see a film of such quality that is not afraid to offend or confront. I was reminded of Hideshi Hino's wonderful work while watching this and highly recommend you chase down Rampo Noir.

On February 15, Caterpillar will unspool for the first time at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Considering Wakamatsu's history, the original author's lasting status, and the high esteem in which I hold Sato's adaptation, perhaps you can understand why I am so primed for this cinematic event.

Wakamatsu truly personifies the filmmaker as anarchist and provocateur.

Without art like his, I'd rather be dead.