Page 81 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

68 Nightmare Japan

before the erratic flashing bulbs of photographers’ cameras, Kitami, the
model/sadist, exaggeratedly wields a thin phallic penknife above
Ryuzaki’s recumbent form, periodically lowering the blade to inflict a
series of tiny incisions in his lover’s flesh. Each successive slash makes
Ryuzaki writhe and grunt, his physical contortions simultaneously
evocative of pain and pleasure. In keeping with the majority of the events
depicted in Sato’s film, this coupling is highly stylised. Much of the
sequence, for instance, transpires behind a thick white lamp that Sato
conspicuously foregrounds in the center of the shot, providing an extra
obstacle to obfuscate the shadowy bodies that comprise the ultimate locus
of the viewers’ gaze. This image links the apportioning of light with
corporeal intensity, a conceit that becomes increasingly important as the
film progresses. What’s more, the scene’s frustration of traditional
spectatorial pleasure compels viewers to reconsider their expectations as
they actively engage with the visual and aural components of Sato’s
cinematic composition.
In the latter scene, Sato prefaces the sudden severing of Kitami’s
arm with a montage depicting Kitami posing beneath the flood of light
emanating from Ryuzaki’s arrangement of professional-grade lamps and
reflectors. Following hard upon the events described in the paragraph
above, the sequence of images leading up to Ryuzaki’s assault resonate
with an orgasmic intensity obviated by Ryuzaki’s declaration that
Kitami’s sudden ‘sadism’ educed a state of psychic excess (‘[s]omething
inside me crumbled and exploded at the same time’). Here, too, light
takes on a vital thematic weight, as the lamps’ brightness temporarily
blinds Kitami, leaving him vulnerable to Ryuzaki’s aggression. Sato’s
editing likewise contributes to the climactic assault; the unsheathing of
the sword with which Ryuzaki dis-arms the disarming Kitami transpires
in a brightly illuminated close-up, immediately followed by a series of
rapid-fire cuts that culminate in a highly stylised representation of the
arm’s violent dismemberment that weds the viewer’s perspective with the
inverted POV of one of Ryuzaki’s camera’s view-finders. By lensing
Ryuzaki’s graphic crime of passion as at once disorienting and
ejaculatory, Sato suggests that understanding the motivations behind his
characters’ actions may require his audience to adopt new ways of seeing.