Creep (2014) Movie Thoughts

Driving up a mountainous road, looking forward to a quick 1,000 dollars based on an ad, videographer, Aaron finds the lonely cabin, and quickly is surprised to meet the instantly quirky, Josef. Upon the first few minutes of meeting the uncommonly friendly host, it's established that the day's work will consist of following him as he wishes to create a parting video for his unborn son. You see, Josef discloses that after a long battle with cancer, this latest onslaught seems terminal, and to leave something for his wife and child to remember him by is the order of the day. Only, as the day grows on, Josef's behavior becomes increasingly strange, and the clearly unsettled Aaron finds himself (and the audience) captive to not only the most primal of fears, but possibly even his own conscience. Part Duplass Brothers comedy, part found footage freak-fest, Creep plays like a mostly well-executed prank complete with some of the most disquieting moments in horror I have experienced in a spell.


True to these statements, the piece feels like an examination of not only this pair of characters as motivations are questioned, but of the line between uncomfortable comedy and deep disturbance. As we assume the role of the constantly filming Aaron, we are witness to Josef's strange, often friendly sounding attempts to maintain a facade, and it becomes a game of when that final show will drop like a block of lead. Early on, we are introduced to a wolf motif that will find itself echoing throughout as if the film is completely willing to let us all in on the gag. As in just about all found-footage pieces, we become voyeur, and find ourselves at the mercy of the cameraperson's own demeanor. And in the case of Creep, it is of a lead that is clearly in this situation out of his control. Expectations are played with like a dangling mouse in a cat's claw, as Aaron begins making decisions that border on forcing the story, but it's also hard to completely blame him as the story unfolding exposes that perhaps he too harbors skeletons that render him an ideal counterpoint to Josef's increasingly erratic actions. At some points it becomes hard to tell who is being more deceptive.


One of Creep's biggest arrows in its quiver though, is the intimate casting and performances between Duplass and Brice, who apparently improvised the entire film. There is a constant thread of unreliable storytelling between the two men, that it becomes unbearable with how much the truth seems desperate to get out(even if perhaps we don't really want to know). Duplass' Josef, is something of a revelation here, as a man who clearly is suffering from something beyond the tumor he speaks of. He never wavers in his ability to get beneath the skin, and stay there. And Brice's straight man aura becomes an effective barometer for each scene he tries desperately to get out, paycheck be damned.


For a film of even this format, it is easily one of the most minimal outside of the original Paranormal Activity, where there is so very little to see, but the dread thickens to a handsome degree. And while the film clocks in at an incredibly lean 82 minutes, the balancing act between laughter and jitters almost hits an imbalance during the last third. Even so, the performances and sheer minimalism of the whole makes for one of the more effective uses of the verité format in some time. Brice does a fairly sharp job of making it all feel very much in the real world for a great majority. And as the often clueless Aaron, he makes for a mostly understandable worm on a hook. And as such, one can easily conjure mental images of festival audiences taking some real theater escape route scanning during screenings. When one isn't giggling at the absurd eerieness, one couldn't be blamed if they felt compelled to run out of the theater a few times. One would be hard pressed to not have experienced this at least once in their lives.    

R100 (2013) Movie Review

Picture if you will, a reality-based game where you can experience the fantasy of being dominated by powerful women at odd hours of the day for a year. Who can appear anywhere, at any time, and can brighten your troubled soul with a hit or a lash. But what if this contract's rules only exacerbate over time, as those you love are destined to stumble upon this secret life of yours? Quietly suffering salesman, Takafumi Katayama(the ever guileless Nao Omori) is such a customer, and there isn't a safe word to be found. Upon first being reminded of Hitoshi Matsumoto's first film since his goofy, but admirable Big Man Japan, the ad campaign seemed hellbent on selling us something primed to shock & illuminate. What we get is R100, which sees the director as declarateur, extolling the virtues of perverse art and performance as a means of quelling the restless Japanese man's heart. And while it does offer up shades of the former, the latter finds itself more than a little parched.


Raising a young son, often with care from his kindhearted father, Katayama's entry into a world of unpredictable beatings and humiliations starts off with a tremendously amusing opening from the perspective of a statuesque beauty seemingly ending a date with a kick to the face. This scene alone establishes a potent mixture of black comedy in ways that is both familiar to those who are fans of Takashi Miike (of which Omori, is a seasoned veteran), and even to the films of David Fincher. It's an audacious start to a piece that doesn't want to play by any real rules, but never figures itself out. And despite the potential inherent in this opening moment, we are also introduced to one of the film's great weaknesses. We find that Katayama is in dire need, being a largely absent dad with a wife in a coma, lying to his little one about when she will be back home. But even so, what we do discover seems to be scant, and as the film skeeters toward the dramatic, gags come back to the fore, robbing us of any real tension. Sure, we get flashes of his normal life before black clad beauties burst onto the scene to terrorize him ad-infinitum, but the balance simply isn't there. There is a real need to get into the discomfort of the mundane before the outrageous will have its way with him, and it never really happens. There is an implication of the coming collision course, but being too caught up in visualizing Katayama's euphoric states (which is done in creepy CG-enhanced smiles) ends up creating a numbing effect of sorts.


And the license doesn't stop there. The film ultimately breaks into intendedly humorous non-sequitirs, portraying Omori as himself, trying to explain the film to censors about the story they are watching. A move that could easily have added dimension ends up floundering like a laundry list of justifications for the film's very existence. With Omori, head bowed down in embarrassment, hoping the company men would overlook these acts as the musings of a centenarian filmmaker. It's hard to imagine this sequence of scenes being in the script stage. There is a certain lack of confidence that laces the affair, as if it knows matters aren't working, and they do little to undo what's already a strange dance of tones. So perhaps only a one hundred year old Japanese man would understand, but what of everyone else? The rest of the film winds up feeling like a private joke, unwilling to let anyone else in who is not so nonplussed by so-called "extreme Japan" art.


And a large reason for this feeling of discontent, is the array of promise that Matsumoto and company dish out. From Omori's melancholic performance as a hapless salaryman, only wishing to do right, to great appearances by Gin Maeda, and a surprising Atsuro Watabe(of Love Exposure fame). The refreshingly old school feel of the film's color palette of decaying grays, greens, and ambers bring out a sad grain that evokes the most forbidden thoughts of a generation gone by the wayside. Even Matsumoto's appearance as a powerless, ignorant cop offers up brightness in a work so eager for even levity. And despite the film's inevitable descent into pure anarchistic weird, it's something that none of these shining lights can do to take it over the top. It perhaps doesn't help matters that so much Japanese media flirts with the inherently perverse, that a film like this needs a special touch to make it connect. So when a piece like this takes us through a rabbit hole of kink and circumstance, the discomfort levels need to be amped up significantly. There is something potentially profound to be examined within Matsumoto's thesis, but when the public beatings and encroaching doom gathers steam, there is an immense lack of milking the merge for all its worth that hinders everything. 

Akumu No Elevator [Elevator Trap] (2009) Movie Review

In a hurry to reach his in-labor wife, young Jun Ogawa(Takumi Saitoh) finds himself knocked unconscious, and suddenly coming to within an elevator, now trapped inside with three uniquely peculiar strangers. One, a down on his luck yakuza(Masaaki Uchino). Another, an elderly man in a track suit(Fuyuki Moto) with a startling secret, and a teenager in gothic lolita garb(Aimi Satsukawa), seemingly ready to end her life. All three incapable of communicating with the outside, their personalities & circumstances clash, with unexpected twists unfolding as noone is what they seem. And all of this, merely prelude. Actor, Keisuke Horibe's directorial debut based on the novel by Hanta Kinoshita is a decidedly mixed affair that reaches impressive highs, and yet finds itself unable to tie matters together in any larger sense.



To be honest, I was ready for an entire film to be confined to this setting. There is enough sense of timing, choreography and performance here that it easily feels labored and well-executed. In many ways, this section alone qualifies as a classically-styled stage play, or short subject. Taken on its own, the entire film comes off like a well-storyboarded spin on flashback-laden tales of confinement ala LOST, with perhaps even a dash of The Breakfast Club. So once things truly get going, and headlong into a second act, there is definitely much more going on that unspools like a macabre game of reverse Mousetrap. Layers of truth slough off here and there, until reality is virtually upended top-down, and themes of living with fictions as justification take over-- even as bodies & revelations begin to pile up.

And while the latter end of this indeed has it's impressive moments of grim humor, a good deal of it feels unclear of what it's in the service of. And this is most likely due to a bookend structure that Horibe unnecessarily grants the piece, a structure that pleads to give it all meaning, but ultimately feels either underwritten, or lacking in clarity. When establishing at frame one as to who the film's true focal point is before the title-based sequence, there is either a need to make this a more prominent emotional core to the film, or else it feels forced, which it ultimately does. While its well and good that a film can attempt to pay tribute to mystery/suspense conventions, whilst nodding at human drama, Kinoshita's script simply finds itself unable to reconcile with all the additional baggage plaguing the opening and ending.

As it stands, Elevator Trap excels best when it's playing on genre expectations, parodying our love of the unexpected, and offering up a surprisingly funny satire of urban Japanese character-types. But when it tries to reach for something closer to the heart, it simply finds itself a little lost.

Kamata Kyoshin-kyoku (AKA Fall Guy, 1982) Movie Review

Ginshiro Kuraoka (Morio Kazama) is a one-time matinee idol type who has now begun to feel the plummeting weight of his fading star. Having to stoop to sneaking in as many closeups as possible in lieu of up and coming competition, the once proud star reveals to his astonished entourage a less than flattering side that is in no small way, an open admission of panic at his predicament. And it only gets worse upon the bombshell that his one-time movie favorite starlet girlfriend is four months pregnant. Enter the life of his most trusted stunt double in Yasu (Mitsuru Hirata), who is now essentially put upon to marry the discarded and heartbroken Konatsu (Keiko Matsuzaka) in the name of damage control. Both equally shocked by the former star's behavior, but also saddled with few options, the two eventually do agree to swap vows, which leads to Yasu's ever more daring overtures for increasingly dangerous action scene work. With Kinji Fukasakuat the helm, one can't shake the feeling that he has taken the lens away from his more familiar focus of ire, the world of the Yakuza, and turned it inward, as Kamata Kyoshin-kyoku is as savage an evisceration of the Japanese movie industry, as it is a wildly entertaining anti-comedy.

No sooner does the good-hearted, and humble Yasu take on this complicated responsibility, that his entire world becomes a winding rollercoaster of pain and hardship. Often taking double jobs within the same scene, pretending to have not had his chance prior to the crew, Yasu's dedication to his bride-to-be and unborn child begins to reach troubling levels. And all the while, Konatsu comes to better understand her erstwhile ex, as he has now set his sights on a younger, hopelessly dim bulb of a fan. Now even further feeling left behind, Konatsu attempts to better dedicate herself to her new circumstances. So when the film takes a sharp turn, leading to the return of Ginshiro to the core story, and a potentially death-defying stunt with Yasu singularly in mind, the film becomes a gut-wrenching time bomb along with Yasu, as he is pushed to his physical and emotional limits.

And while some may argue that such a premise is the last thing one considers to be one that could elicit laughter, Fukasaku's often frenzied direction and the work's effective performances create a world where the irony and laughter are interchangeable within a cultural context. While westerners might see much of this as often uncomfortable, and borderline melodramatic, it may be important to be familiar with the language of Japanese cinema, and the means by which little of this is filmed with abject seriousness in mind, save for the implications. Which is why Hirata's Yasu is so indelible. His unique blend of earnest simpleton, and selfless fool is an incredible draw for the film as he embodies more than merely a complex loser lead, but rather many of those who live the cinema dream, even while working in its stages. There is no spill too big, or bruise not worth flirting with. It's all in the name of this undefinable dream that is ever elusive, no matter how close one is with those already within the "winner's circle". Equally impressive is Matsuzaka, who carries with her a classic beauty who has like so many, settled well before their ability came to full flower in a industry obsessed with youth. But these two would not be so well established without the terrible force of nature that is Kazama as Ginshiro, who's diva manchild antics simply borderline on horrific.

Cleverly, the film begins within the confines of a cinematic world, as Ginshiro's most prideful face is on display during the filming of yet another period action piece. But just as soon as we see this, we are also witness to the reality regarding him, as well as the bit players on the set, which include day players such as Yasu, who seem set in their wishes for better work, even if it's for mere peanuts. So even as we get to know how good and dedicated a presence Yasu is to the clearly childlike and unstable Ginshiro, it becomes something of a masochistic relationship- more than likely borne out of a film world filled with individuals incapable of seeing their own worth, and often wiling to do anything to remain part of it. When considered in such a context, Yasu's role is no different than so many of Fukasaku's criminal outcasts. Always on the outside, looking in, and often at a heavy price.

So when the story reaches its final act, and the mutual worlds of  Yasu, Konatsu, and the film's reach critical mass, it is a boiling point that is both intentionally overwrought, and almost mocking of how such films in a standard movie world both seem so real and yet ineffectually manufactured. Worlds blur, and it's pretty stunning with how it is all handled.

While definitely not one of his most instantly accessible, Kamata Kyoshin-kyoku is a sneaky, brutal, often bleakly funny experience that is vital to J-film fans the world over.