Um… yeah. If I characterised our previous film as “berserk”, how can I not say the same thing about… whatever the fuck this was? This, it should be said, is considered one of the defining works of Japanese cyberpunk cinema, so it was pretty much bound to be one of the damnedest things I’ve ever seen; I have read descriptions of other extreme Japanese horror films next to which Tetsuo may seem comparatively mild, but on its own terms… yeah, I don’t think I’ve seen much else that was quite this out there. The story, if you can call it, revolves around two men, a “metal fetishist” and a salaryman who runs him over in a car accident; the latter gradually finds his life turning more metallic as it becomes clear he should’ve made sure the metal guy was in fact dead before trying to dispose of him. It’s actually more coherent than some critics seem to think it is, basically being a particularly fucked kind of supernatural revenge story, but the story’s not the point, the style is… indeed, Tetsuo is a pretty astounding case of style as substance rather than just over it. I feel like the budgetary constraints on the film (which only cost about $100,000), having to shoot on black and white 16mm film and so forth, actually make the film what it is, this would’ve been an entirely different film in 35mm and colour (like its sequel) because the grotty b/w visual just define the tone so much. Tetsuo is all about those visuals, the editing, the sound and music design, and especially the startling use of pixillation; throughout the film you can see it visibly fighting its limitations. It does get kind of wearing before the end—this is a somewhat long 67 minutes—but once I got into its peculiar vibe I enjoyed it a fair bit. Really should see more of Shinya Tsukamoto’s stuff.
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