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

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.