Incontestably, the following is one of my favourite films, and as such, deserving of a sizable, and indeed, overly loquacious, review.
Yakuza Attack Dogs: Half a mile of non-specific runic odes and hieroglyphics…
Gozu (2003)
Directed by Takeshi Miike
Takeshi Miike has often been regarded by connoisseurs of Japanese cinema to be something of a creative enigma, a man who at one moment may wax lyrical about his undying love of traditional flower arranging (ikebana), only to dispense with such feeble niceties to turn his attention to topics of an altogether more sinister variety.
For Miike is a man with whom little is taboo, a man who is willing to challenge, and indeed defy, the conventions and apparent limitations of not only film, but contemporary art itself. So far, so superlative, but I honestly do believe that Miike has outdone himself with this, arguably his most languid offering, a genre hopping and majestically deranged surrealist treatise on the human soul, known only as ‘Gozu’.
The film itself, for all its worth, centres around the Odysseus style meanderings of a virginal yakuza henchman named Minami (Hideki Sone), who is instructed to ‘remove’ his senior officer Ozaki (Sho Aikawa) due to what the local crime boss describes as his ‘curious’ behaviour. Minami despite having great respect for Ozaki anxiously acquiesces to his superior’s demands, no doubt influenced by Ozaki’s recent elimination of a diminutive Chihuahua, whom he believed to be an assassin of sorts, intent on taking his life.
Upon taking Ozaki for what should be his last drive, an accident occurs, resulting in the apparent fracturing of Ozaki’s skull, ergo, completing the task that had previously fallen to Minami, without his (deliberate) interference. Minami, who suddenly finds himself at a comparative loss, continues to drive with Ozaki’s corpse as a companion, eventually arriving at the town of Nagoya, a grey hued Elysium of a city, still reeling from the last great bout of economic recession (in any case, this is further emphasised by the urine-tinged aesthetic provided by the poorly construed, yet brilliantly employed, camera filters).
Without giving too much away in regards to the psychological minefield that Miike deems to be a plot (screenwriter Sakichi Satô appears to have had a field day writing this one), I do feel that I can safely state that the myriad citizens of Nagoya are the true stars of the show, and at that, the true source of Minami-San’s perpetual introspection.
In any case, one could never describe the ‘human’ population of Nagoya as being normal, as for every autistic clairvoyant innkeeper (who, just by chance, or so it would appear, happens to have an ‘almost oedipal’ relationship with his decrepit sister, or is that mother?), there inexorably appears a night crawling, cow-headed, pornography sharing, tap-dancing, primordial excuse of a man, who much like Minami, apparently seems to be at odds with his current, hellish, surroundings.
So what of Ozaki, the supposedly deceased psychotic Chihuahua slaughterer? Well his body disappears, and afterwards, in one of the most inexplicable and bizarre career comebacks since Christ’s resurrection, his spirit returns, having conveniently adopted the guise of a beautifully voluptuous young woman, who (as one may expect), casually attempts to seduce the increasingly perplexed Minami in a series of sexually arousing vignettes.
As I’ve already stated, ‘Gozu’ in itself is an extremely difficult film to categorise, a writhing goliath of kaleidoscopic themes (including those two seemingly inseparable subjects, homosexuality and reincarnation) and improvised altercations, that inevitably defies the traditional boundaries of cinematic genre by veering sporadically between both comedy and tragedy with an almost stupefying fluidity, that truth be told, will not only confuse those who happen to be familiar with (or fans of) Miike’s sizable back catalogue of ultra violent thrillers (chief amongst which remains ‘Ichi The Killer’) but also those more accustomed to the cookie-cutter fodder of mainstream western cinema, wherein yakuza attack dogs are rarely studied in a serious, let alone detailed, manner.
(Consequently, ‘Gozu’ plays loose and fast with certain filmic conventions. For instance, one need only observe the general irreverence that Miike exhibits in regards to western sensibilities, as he prefers, and rightfully so, to embrace his own cultural heritage, presenting the action in a deliberately episodic and jilted style, that more often than not, proves to be vividly reminiscent of Japan’s first great art-form, manga.)
Nevertheless, despite, or in spite of, the aforementioned weirdness, the most striking aspect of ‘Gozu’ as a film has next to nothing to do with its visual or indeed, thematic deviations, but rather to do with the fashion in which Miike admirably handles such ethereal material, effortlessly creating a believable context, in which, rather contradictorily, anything can, and will, happen.
) and any doubts I had on the two you reviewed have been banished now.
