Page 166 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema
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Spiraling into Apocalypse 153
the film’s penultimate scene, Desert/Dessert/Dessret’s ‘final
performance’, coupled with their injunction that we – the spectators –
should ‘live as [we] please’, suggests that ultimately breaking free from
cycles of self-destruction remains a viable option. The future is in our
hands and, in the words of the pop sirens, it is still possible to ‘find life
again’.
Spirals and Vortices: Higuchinsky’s Uzumaki
Based on Ito Junji’s remarkable manga series of the same name,
Higuchinsky’s Uzumaki (also known by the English titles: Spiral and
Vortex, 2000) not only stands as one of the most unique works of
contemporary Japanese horror cinema, but also as one of the most
original horror films in all of world cinema. Highly experimental in its
visual style, and intellectually challenging in its socio-cultural critique
and meticulously recursive narrative structure, Uzumaki has been
described by critics as a ‘dazzling’ (Sharp 2000: para 6) and ‘dynamically
rendered’ (Macias 2001: 82) work of apocalyptic art. It is also a cinematic
vision that, despite humorous moments, intentionally exaggerated
performances, and the playful conflation of horror film and romantic
comedy tropes, nevertheless concludes with a tone that, compared to
Sono Shion’s Suicide Circle, seems unremittingly bleak. Set in an
isolated municipality that functions as a microcosm for modern-day
Japanese society, 5 the climax of Higuchinsky’s film offers only the
faintest glimmer of hope for the future of Kurouzu Town’s remaining
inhabitants, including the film’s optimistic narrator, Kirie, whose careful
balancing of Japanese customs with a recognition of the necessity for
cultural change provides a potentially valuable avenue for escaping the
entropic inertia of socio-cultural isolationism.
5
This comparison is rendered visually explicit when a televised emergency weather broadcast
warning of a typhoon’s (yet another spiral’s) imminent arrival in Karouzu Town graphically
represents the impending rain and winds as a red spiral over central Japan.