Page 163 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
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150                                           Nightmare Japan

                                    To  posit  Desert/Dessert/Dessret  as  an  exclusively  destructive  or
                              isolating force, however, ignores their function as the ambassadors of the
                              prepubescent  collective  behind  the  suicides,  a  group  whose  ‘hatred
                              towards  Japan’  Sono  imagines  as  ‘an  angelic  beauty’  (Crawford  2003:
                              309). Although many of the lyrics to their ostensibly syrupy ditties can be
                              read as thinly veiled invitations to ‘find a match that lasts forever’, even if
                              such  a  quest  results  in  saying  ‘so  long’  to  life  in  late-industrial  Japan,
                              certain  lines  advocate  a  rejection  of  the  isolation  that  so-called
                              ‘communication  technologies’  can  foster  in  favour  of  tangible,
                              emotionally-engaged  interpersonal  relationships.  We  can  find  such  an
                              ideology  championed  in  the  following  lyrics  from  the  music
                              video/performance over which the closing credits roll:

                                     Little did we know
                                     How little do we really know
                                     Everyday we’re pressing the key
                                     That executes a million commands
                                     If only you could say exactly what is on your mind
                                     And tell me how you really feel
                                     Maybe I can lend a helping hand
                                     Scary it’s true, but loads of fun, too

                              In short, Desert/Dessert/Dessret’s pop lyrics provide vital clues about the
                              motivations of the ‘angelic’ children behind the mass suicides, especially
                              their  powerful  desire  to  promote  external,  ‘real  world’  human
                              attachments, exchanges through which people can ‘feel the pain of others
                              as  [they]  would  [their]  own’.  It  is  this  message  of  ‘connection’  that
                              characters  like  Detective  Karuda  (with  his  emotional  distance  from  his
                              family  and  his  recurrent  obsession  with  his  appearance  in  mirrors)
                              tragically fail to understand until it is too late. Similarly, it is this contact
                              that the film’s suicidal characters only achieve in the most abstracted and
                              ironic  of  ways:  as  anonymous,  uniform  rectangles  of  freshly-skinned
                              flesh  mechanically  sewn  into  gruesome  spiralling  chains  that  are
                              eventually  wrapped  in  plastic,  packed  in  nondescript  white  sports  bags,
                              and mysteriously left at the site of numerous suicides.
                                     In  contrast,  the  desire  for  interpersonal  communion  informs
                              many  of  the  actions  of  Karuda’s  young  assistant,  Detective  Shibusawa,
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