Gozu

Takashi Miike

Siren Visual

Web: http://www.sirenvisual.com.au

Gozu is a strange and surreal film, for many it is considered one of the classics of Japanese surrealistic cinema. Each character is developed in such incredible detail that each time someone arrives on screen you know you are in for a new experience. In many ways the individuals from Gozu remind us of the “black humour” of Little Britain or perhaps more like “A League of Gentlemen”. Nobody is normal; everybody is neurotic, perverse and psychologically scarred. This is a Freudian view of the world where everyone’s hidden desires are manifest and nobody is normal. This is a film which has resonances with everything from French Surrealist cinema to the works of David Lynch.

The film begins with a simple yakuza meeting; however, Ozaki, one of the team is going a little weird. He is convinced that the Chihuahua in the arms of his boss’s lover is actually a Yakuza killer Chihuahua and he must kill it. He throttles it, throws it around his head and smashes it to the pavement. His growing insanity and paranoia is obvious to all. The boss asks Minami, his best friend to arrange to have him “taken to the dump” i.e. terminated. He convinces him they must visit Nagoya to meet another team and off they go, along the way there is more evidence of his madness as he becomes convinced that a simple car driving behind them is a “Yakuza” killer vehicle !

Thus begins a strange travel tale where nothing and nobody is what they seem. As the journey unfolds they get within a short stop of Nagoya but a river seems to appear from nowhere in front of them and separates them from their destination. I read this river as the unconscious and as they cross into Nagoya, they enter into the unconscious mind, Minami looses Osaki and the search for him begins, he dare not return to his boss with his task uncompleted. This is somewhat like a sacred journey, a vision quest, a pilgrimage but of a demented and unconscious type, filled to the brim with trauma and images of nightmares, sexual suppression and violence.

The search includes all manner of bizarre experiences, a motel manager who fills bottles of milk with her own breast milk (and an experience of a Cow Demon along the way), transvestite café staff, local yahoos and reality and madness seem to mix together. When at last Minami finds his friend, it seems he has been killed and pressed at a local car yard. Minami is startled to find someone has solved his problem for him, but this reprieve is short lived as he discovers Osaki is still alive but has changed sex and become a vivacious woman!

At this stage the film has become more and more dreamlike, however, rather than being off-putting, you are slowly drawn into the madness of the film; the quirkiness of the characters and the non linear nature of the plot. We then enter truly Freudian territory, where Minami desires his partner Osaki, who is now a woman but must save him/her from the boss. The boss has erection problems and has to anally insert metal ladles in his rectum to achieve the results he desires and in a truly amazing scene Minami catches him with his pants down about to despoil Osaki and drives the ladle up his behind and electrocutes him ! He dies in both pleasure and pain in a messy climax.

Minami and Osaki then make love and he becomes locked, literally locked, in sexual union, he finds a hand within her vagina grasping his appendage. As he disentangles from Osaki, she slowly she gives birth to a full grown figure and it is Osaki as a man. The sexual variance of this scene is truly impressive, Minami and Osaki in homosexual embrace (Osaki is a woman but has identified as his brother i.e. male), give birth to Osaki as a male and the three go off into world together !!!

This is a strange, non linear surrealist film which is both unpredictable and entertaining. It is certainly not “traditional” Yakuza fare so be ready to experience some truly bizarre cinema. The strangeness of the plot, idiosyncrasies of the characters and sheer creativity perversity of much of this film makes it a must see experience.