.Welcome to Videodrome. I try not to set goals, but if I did, and if Devin won't sabotage me with his commie psychic ray, this should resemble a weekly column that supports the cool stuff Dave does in the Underground by focusing on directors and small groups of related films that Chud might otherwise miss. Strangely enough, psychic rays are a large part of this first installment…maybe the bearded liberal is already undermining me.

Eventually, this will be less about reviews and more interested in pointing out all the unbelievable stuff that's now commonly available thanks to DVD. New is OK, but older is great. To begin I want to go back a few years to Japan, from 1988 to 1996.


Cyberpunk's Not Dead

The Matrix killed cyberpunk for me. Even worse, it did the job in a way the genre would admire: by mutating it into something that was almost recognizably 'cyberpunk', yet totally different. Bigger, harder to control, and sadly much less useful. Granted, the term was always pretty lame. William Gibson has tried his damndest to preserve a literary notion of the genre, but for most people it's just The Matrix. Mention that Rubber's Lover is cyberpunk, and they're going to expect something shiny and high-minded.

To me, cyberpunk is forever dirty, street-level sci-fi. The word 'punk' ain't in there for nothing. It's the passion of the Sex Pistols or Bad Brains, where it's not enough that the people in the songs are desperate. The music, and these films, wouldn't work if they didn't use that same energy to push back at the audience.

And all-important, buried in the grit was always the question: 'What would you do to transform yourself?' That question, of course, is as fitting in the Videodrome mindset as it is in the three films I recently watched: Tetsuo The Iron Man, Pinocchio √964 and Rubber's Lover. All of these movies are fitting tributes to the idea behind Videodrome, so they're a pretty good way to kick off the column.

Whenever you're mutating into something glistening and new, a proper foundation always helps. So I'll kick off with a revisitation of the landmark flick that some love to copy ande few have actually seen…


Tetsuo The Iron Man

(1988, Japan, Shinya Tsukamoto)

Iron Man Cover.Specifically, there are a couple of reasons I'm beginning here. First, the two Fukui films that follow borrow so heavily from Tetsuo that it's pointless to discuss them without mentioning Shinya Tsukamoto's pioneering film. Second is that it had been at least ten years since I'd seen the film, and it was high time for a refresher course. Finally, I see dismissals all over the internet written by lazy-ass commentators who proclaim it to be impenetrable trash. Balls. Tetsuo is overbearing and off-putting, but not difficult to follow, as long as you're paying attention.

Tetsuo also brings in the Davids, Lynch and Cronenberg, both of whom are acknowledged by Tsukamoto. Setting aside the obvious 'body horror' component -- which I'd say is symptomatic of what's really going on in the film -- Tetsuo looks a lot like Japan's answer to Eraserhead. The general aesthetic, the sound design and starkly interior nature of the real story are all a contract-print reproduction of Lynch's debut.

The film lives in decaying urban spaces. A man, ultimately identified in the credits as 'metal fetishist', cuts a large slit in his leg, into which he slides a long, threaded rod of metal. Images of famous runners adorn his workspace, which make his transformative desires pretty clear: could this process bestow a new speed and power? It's just as obvious that something has gone wrong when the photos all erupt in flashes of fire. In case it's not obvious enough, however, we see the wound crawling with maggots desperate to consume the decaying flesh.

The bolt, we discover, was infected with rust. Try to stop that pernicious orange virus. Staggering into the street, the fetishist is struck by a car. The salaryman behind the wheel, terrified by the consequences of his action, drags the wounded man off to the woods, where the victim slips from consciousness as the salaryman and his girlfriend work out their desires for hot tree sex. You've got to wonder how much free will the driver really had, since his car seems to have tattooed 'New World' on it's metal grille.

And that's where everything breaks.

Back home, the salaryman is infected by a sliver of metal from his shaver, a stainless steel injection. The metal which took over the fetishist, that urban spirit, now begins to control the salaryman as well. He quickly undergoes one metamorphosis after the other, quickly outpacing The Guyver in the 'most uncomfortable costume' race. On the other side of town, the fetishist lives, and he races to face the salaryman in a lustful battle royale. The scorecard says: unclean infection versus pristine transformation. It's better than When Godzilla Attacks!

But like I said, the method of transformation is only indicative of the underlying idea. Sure, it's important that it's metal; how better for the urban landscape to rape mankind? Only concrete would be more effective, but it's so inflexible.

The real battle is between the willingly transformed (fetishist) and unwilling (salaryman). It's tragic in a way, because the fetishist desperately wants to become something else, but he's blown it. His adversary, on the other hand, has an almost unhealthy lust for human life (and tree sex) and fights the inevitable with all his will. Their battle is a half-hour chase scene through the back streets of Tokyo. Finally, there's a sort of compromise that promises the metal that 'new world' it so desires.

(Miike did his own transformation of this ending for Dead Or Alive: Final. Shinya Tsukamoto himself appears in Ichi and DOA 2: Birds.)

It's easy to just get caught up in the spectacle of the conflict. Tsukamoto barrages us with images that are sickly and revolting -- rotting flesh, the penis drill, strap-on tentacles -- but he does it in a way that's impossible to look away from. It's hyper-kinetic stop motion swirled through the lens in high contrast black and white. He almost hyperventilates this film (it runs a mere 67 minutes) and even the flashbacks, which imply that the metal's memory is television, offer a tense but swift fascination.

Chu Ishikawa bangs out an aural equivalent to the harsh landscape, channeling Einsturzende Neubauten and Big Black into a set of songs that become the movie's mechanical pulse. But then he drops into a '50's milkshake dance number whenever the film's automobile hero hits the stage, equating the love and enmity for metal with a crazy Norman Rockwell puppy love.

In the years after Tetsuo, the film's content was echoed in legions of followers. Some were obvious (the Raimi-esque follow-up Tetsuo II: Body Hammer) while others essentially returned Tsukamoto's affections -- take another look at James Spader riding Roseanna Arquette's leg in Crash.

But more immediately in the film's wake was a kinetic pair of films from Shozin Fukui, and they're up next.

(Tetsuo is tragically out of print in the states, though DiabolikDVD.com and other importers carry a legit Region2 PAL disc.)


Pinocchio √964

(1991, Japan, Shozin Fukui)

964 Cover.Fast forward three years. While Tsukamoto was making Tetsuo, Shozin Fukui was cutting his teeth shooting documentaries and musical performances. He was also nurturing ideas for a film that could explore a different kind of transformation: the evolution of the mind through the pressure of physical pain. He evidently took the structure and style of Tetsuo as a mandate, because this story of a displaced sex android is like that film's awkward younger brother.

Pinocchio (who I'll just call 964 from now on) is the android in question, an object cast onto the street by an unsatisfied client. Built (or grown) solely to pleasure others, 964 has no memory and no sense of the outside world. Wandering the city, he meets Himiko, herself an amnesiac who seems to recognize something about the poor guy, and quickly befriends him. As 964's creator sends out a search party, the robot and Himiko ultimately get down in ways only a sex robot and amnesiac girl can.

And that's where everything breaks.

The android's creator says that the only way to free people is with a big jolt of sex, and that's exactly what happens. After a little lovin', 964 is wracked by incredible pain, which seems to be the result of his sudden understanding of his own condition. He's no longer a walking vibrator, but a shell of a man, horribly aware of his backwards evolutionary step.

Whether through the sex or 964's subsequent power, Himiko is also unhinged, and violently so. She's been repressing memories of her own, which imply some role in 964's creation. And once the flood gates open, there's no closing them.

Himiko staggers through the subway, vomiting profusely. I might suggest to an Alzheimer's research panel that excessive vomiting, followed by rolling in the result and, er, eating it, might help with memory loss…but then again that's probably not a good idea. Just try to tell Himiko that.

But as in Tetsuo, the fluids and kinetic movement are flashy ways of making a point. Trouble is, Fukui isn't all that clear about his intent. Rather than following the 'pain to power' thesis, he establishes 964 and Himiko as a massively dysfunctional couple. First she helps create him through a sickeningly violent process, then turns him into her own slave, alternately caring and dispensing abuse. There is a final bizarre physical transformation, but it's a manifestation of that relationship, rather than of a pure will to power fantasy.

Fukui tries to use the same stylistic camera and narrative style that worked so well for Tsukamoto, but simply doesn't have the skill to pull it off. That really limits the film, and the experimental narrative sags. His camera moves excessively to hide a limited budget, and Fukui only occasionally shoehorns meaning into the jarring movement.

Even with those issues, there's one overriding flaw that keeps Pinocchio from being as unsettling and effective as Tetsuo: it's too damn long. Fukui imitates the mad dashes through Tokyo that worked so well for his inspiration, but he indulges himself both at greater length and slower pace. At almost 100 minutes this is too long by half an hour.

There are some really fun and intriguing ideas here, though. Before Bishop was revealed as the creator of his own line of androids, 964's morally dubious creator seems to be making sex dolls in his own image. And I'm really interested in the intersection of violence and memory, and how the result affects one's ability to relate to anyone else. That's a huge part of the subtext here, but it almost seems to be unintentional, making it almost too 'sub' to work.

There's also some fun humor -- I love Himiko taunting the android's pursuers, as well as the final sequence when 964 takes hold of his own power. I certainly wouldn't blame anyone for completely missing Pinocchio's point, however, which is just a forthright way of establishing my own critical escape route when it's revealed that this is actually a Heimlich Maneuver instructional film. If you want vomit, you got it.

(Buy it here from Amazon.)


Rubber's Lover

(1996, Japan, Shozin Fukui)

Rubber's Cover.In response, this film is for anyone who thought Pinocchio √964 was good in theory, but too long, too scattered, or simply too thin. Fukui's back on the 'psychic power through physical pain' trip, but he articulates it with far more skill. Here his images are even more reminiscent of Tetsuo and Videodrome, but this also feels more like a whole film, rather than an idea stretched too far.

A trio of scientists have been working for one of those classic shadowy organizations, performing experiments to unlock the secrets of the mind. (Cue theremin, please.) Shimika is the loner, and he thinks the drug ether is the key. The remaining pair, Motomiya and Hitotsubashi, have been experimenting with a device called the Digital Direct Drive, which bombards a subject with aural and visual stimuli, essentially torturing the poor bastard until (a) he unleashes a wave of psychic energy or (b) his head explodes. Option A doesn't seem to happen very often. In fact, neither technique has a survival rate above .000.

And time is running out for all three. Their corporate master sends a sexy lackey, Akari, over to terminate their funding. Not such a good idea, since Motomiya has been behaving erratically, and Shimika is addicted to ether, perhaps on his way to becoming his own successful guinea pig. The lackey arrives as Motomiya has decided to take matters, and the fate of Shimika, into his own hands.

And that's where (all together now) everything breaks.

Pumped full of ether, wrapped in rubber (which provokes shock by depriving the body of oxygen) and bombarded with evidence of his own violent past, Shimika essentially becomes a scanner. The ether overload channels the power outward -- without the drug, the waves roll around in the skull and his head threatens to go the way of so many others before it. The 'power through pain' concept finally comes to a real fruition, and Shimika becomes the only one in all three of these films to really achieve some sort of real evolution, even if the effect is ultimately short-lived.

Whatever experience Fukui gained between Pinocchio and this film was invaluable, because he's far more in control of the camera. The grainy black and white creates scenes with a ridiculously uncomfortable atmosphere, and the effects are more cleverly shot. And where his last film had screaming maniacs instead of characters, here Fukui creates some immediately recognizable personalities, most of which he uses well. I was scared for, and of, Shimika, and even enticed by the oppressive eroticism between Akari and the scientists female assistant.

This isn't a real finale for the cyberpunk barrage that began with Tetsuo, but it is an effective summation. The technology on hand is essentially common, and the scenes of bombardment by the Direct Digital Drive are powerful even though the basic image of a guy with his head stuck in a TV has become debased currency. Fukui belives in it, and that's what makes this film work, and in fact what makes the whole genre. There's no irony here, but an inkling that we might be relying on the wrong things, and fascination mixed with a genuine terror of the consequences.

Finally, one constant in all three films is that, during the process of transformation, violence is not only done to the characters, but perpetrated by them as well. It's a bleak and horrifying worldview. That's where a lot of the desperation comes in -- I don't know if it's a perversion or ratification of the punk ethos -- since the final effect can only be realized by savaging those around you. If that's the case, maybe it was inevitable that a cyberpunk savior like Neo would show up to make us all feel better. Or not.

(Buy Rubber's Lover here from Amazon. Considering the 16mm source, Unearthed Films has done a great job with both of these Fukui films, each of which looks and sounds as good as can be expected from such cyberpunk curios. Special mention has to go to the menu design, which I really enjoyed.)

Thanks for checking out the first column. As always, if you've got comments (derisive or supportive) shoot 'em over to russ @ theporkstore.org. I check facts pretty thoroughly, but with foreign films and smaller stuff misinformation abounds. So if you notice any small inaccuracy or outright lies, please let me know. If there are pairs or trios of films, mini-movements or specific filmmakers that Chud really needs to stroke, make yourself heard. Future installments will feature more festival coverage, express love for a couple of my favorite character actors (Warren Oates and Don McKellar) and I'll hit the output of filmmakers like Lars von Trier, Yasujiro Ozu and, when I'm feeling mighty and capable, Luis Bunuel. That might take a couple of installments.

Generally, I'll keep the content limited to movies that are in print in North America on DVD, though at times I'll have to range further abroad or even (gasp!) encourage some VHS rentals.

Next week will be dedicated to Wong Kar-Wai's pair of Hong Kong love stories, 2046 and In The Mood For Love. After that will be a Chud exclusive look at the DVD restoration of the oddball animated film Rock And Rule. I went to Boston last month to check out the process and can't wait to talk about it.

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