2003 was a slow year for director Takashi Miike: he only presented five features over the 12-month period. What is perhaps more remarkable than the filmmaker’s rate of productivity is his consummate ability to garner and hold audiences and, what’s more, during a majority of said time, posit something of value. Irrefutably, Gozu is just such a case for, amid the oddity of the events contained within, one gains a sense that something very potent is lurking underneath and, indeed, it is. The only question is whether the viewer wants to enter the cognitive vortex Miike has created.
In a Gilliam-circa-Brazilian world populated with extras from David Lynch, only when the Steve Martin-esque irony gives way to Jodorowskian circumstance do we accept that the initially arbitrary warning issued by our main character at the open of the feature, that everything which follows is not to be taken seriously, is to be taken seriously lest we find ourselves in an eerie parable of the absurdity of modern life not unlike that of Samuel Beckett. But it is with this, a slow familiarity with the oddity of that which we have been cast into, that Miike turns the thumbscrews. He gave his screenwriter, the pen behind Ichi the Killer, Sakichi Satô, only one week to compose the script to Gozu. The result is an uneven work which, on par the director’s intent, succinctly parallels the idea and atmosphere which he is attempting to convey. Just as we become acclimated to the black humor of what surrounds us, at almost exactly the halfway point, Miike veers to the left and removes the comic relief, thus leaving us gasping for a reprieve. Masterfully, as we attempt to adapt to our new environment once more, we–like Joseph Heller’s figure of Yossarian–come to realize that the only true apprehension that can be justified is the dread of something logical taking place, which would, by decree and legislation of Gozu, signal something dangerously amiss for, as the filmmaker proves, consistently in life is the one and only irregularity.
Gozu opens with the Azamawari congregating for their monthly meeting, during which time Ozaki (Sho Aikawa) readily displays that his growing paranoia is a threat to the gang. As such, his brother, Minami (Hideki Sone), is instructed to dispose of him. However, long before Ozaki reaches the locale where the murder is to take place, the world in which he finds himself becomes one where his familial crisis is the least of his worries.
Miike opens the work with some of the most potent instances of black humor ever witnessed in the realm of horror. As Ozaki’s suspicion grows to unfounded, ironic proportions, his brother is cast into what can only be described as Ted Kotcheff’s Weekend at Bernie’s for the mafia set. Yet, slowly we realize that comedy is not the director’s primary agenda as Ozaki’s mission shifts from fulfilling his boss’s request to that of a greater plight, a personal voyage fraught with uncomfortable (for the character as well as the viewer) situations, thoughts, and their ramifications. By the closing frame, the audience is forced to acknowledge that what at first was assumed to be a crime/horror action film is, in fact, a mythological epic caulk full of psychological and philosophical discovery.
On the surface, it might seem difficult to justify a work wherein a figure is confronted with the fact that, not only his brother, but his boss (Renji Ishibashi)–via a ladle which he inserts in his anus in order to achieve an erection–is crazy. Minami loses the former’s corpse long before reaching his destination, that is, the location in which he is to kill his sibling. As a consequence, he must relegate himself to consult with local police in order to ascertain where a partner gang is to be found, and, along the way, take sanctuary in a hotel where the innkeeper (Keiko Tomita) is constantly lactating and demanding her guests they drink from her before his riding companion appears the next morn, obviously beaten to near death, but acting as if the only thing which occurred the previous evening was a full night’s rest. This says nothing of the fact that all of the aforementioned events take place within the first half of the feature, even before Minami produces a drawing of his brother, slightly above that of a stick figure which, nonchalantly–not one–but two people positively identify as if it were a photograph. However, one is unable to ignore the various motifs which appear, including those based around milk, déjà vu/repetition (especially in speech), dualistic master and slave relations, and paranoia.
It is easy miss that–due to the carnival which surrounds it is the episodic voyage of our central character, led by a Virgil-esque guide (Shohei Hino), who is met by a modern day Sphinx who poses a question concerning temporality–the figure experiences a life-changing epiphany. Granted, it does not help matters that, just as we are coming to terms, not with the content, but merely the events being depicted, Miike readily convolutes his cinematic möbius strip. For example, we are met by an American grocer whose Japanese is unbearably poor. As Minami moves closer to her, the camera pans to reveal that his host is reading from cue cards pasted above a doorway, thereby making his narrative to a postmodern one wherein everything has been predestined by some omnipotent hand which, considering what came before, we cannot be sure if the culpable party is benevolent or not. This says nothing of the more substantive facets of the feature wherein our main character is having to confront his latent homosexuality, if not incestual desires, which is made all the more difficult in that he finds himself trapped, at first, in a masculine tyranny before being thrust into the polar opposite in which females are constantly inflicting themselves upon him. What is even more difficult for the viewer is Miike’s exquisite conclusion and epilogue wherein we are obligated to either wholly encompass a Jungian interpretation of the proceedings or abandon such in favor of one involving the possibility of split personalities, either action incurring juxtaposed implications as a consequence. Of course, the theme of reincarnation suggests that the former is perhaps more justifiable yet, when one takes into account the symbolism involved, such obligates said reading to a negative one, which runs counter to the atmosphere evidenced during the epilogue. “Whew” indeed.
Many literary critics openly consent to giving the American short story writer Donald Barthelme his due but inevitably add that he achieves but at the cost of strangeness. Such is the case with Takashi Miike. For instance, a character in Gozu is reported to have first masturbated to a picture of mating canines. When the figure has intercourse for the first time, he and his mate, much like dogs, become temporarily conjoined at the groin. In a narrative fraught with countless instances of arresting symbolism and frequent thematic reinforcement, it is unconscionable to haphazardly dismiss the work based solely upon its oddness. Instead, and perhaps the director’s masterstroke, Miike obligates his viewer to posit the requisite time and energy to piece together why the world he has given us is so strange and, in the process, we realize that it is much easier to decipher the contents of Gozu than it is that of our own lives. Genius indeed and, what’s more, the filmmaker does so while sustaining our interest throughout, something which few of us can state our lives are able to do for more than five concurrent minutes, to say nothing of two hours.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
