1966 Japanese dramaRating: 15/20
Plot: A maker of erotic films lives with a woman and her two children. He occasionally sleeps with the woman although she becomes increasingly paranoid when her late husband, reincarnated as a large fish she keeps in a tank beside her bed, gets antsy. The son's a jerk, and the fifteen-year-old daughter, who could somehow be the protagonist's daughter as well, is a whore with a drinking problem. Or a drinker with a whoring problem. Regardless, he develops sexual feelings for her. The mother gets sick, and then everybody in the world gets sick.
Interesting imagery--scenes shot through water and fish and odd-angled cinematography--keep this visually interesting even when the plot gets bloated and overly complex and really pretty dull. A large number of scenes are shot from the outside through cracks in the doors or windows. That got annoying after a while, but it does make the experience more voyeuristic and uncomfortable. Conversations between off-screen characters starting to watch a movie at the beginning (they ask, "What's that fish doing there?") and finishing at the end bookend the film. Like a perverse soap opera at times, this was filled with interesting moments but at times tried my patience. I wonder how shocking this would have been to Japanese audiences in '66 though? Good final scene.
In a former life, I was a pornographic fish:
2 comments:
pike mask replica. did i tell you i was playing dungeons and dragon weekly? tonight we fought human sized pike. they may or may not have been reincarnated japanese pornographers.
Dylan's been wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons. Would it be ok if we fly him out there and have him live in your basement so that you can let him out once a week to play? He's smart for his age and would be easy enough to take care of. Just throw him the occasional book and one of those bags o' salad.
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