I’m happy I never drink milk.
Visitor Q (2001)
Directed By: Takashi Miike (Ichi The Killer)
The Prologue
In the early 2000′s Love Cinema were behind a series of films consisting of straight-to-video releases by independent filmmakers via a brief but exclusive run at the minuscule Shimokitazawa cinema in Tokyo. In this series there were six films, and the sixth film was by none other than Takashi Miike and that film was Visitor Q. That film, which are covering today, was a hell of a trip. And that’s by even Miike’s standards, because a lot of his work was/is messed up. Gozu, Ichi The Killer? All pretty “out there”, but this one for sure seems to take the cake.
The Movie
A family that is already pretty twisted and messed up (messed up in such a way I hate to even type it out), is turned upside down when a mysterious man is invited to stay with them for a while after flogging the man of the house in the head with a rock a couple times for no apparent reason. All in all, it’s a story of abuse, rape, incest, murder, and milk being shot from a woman’s breast for reasons I have no true reasoning for. But than again, when you take a look at the film’s director I guess we don’t need to even bother asking too many questions huh? Lets just say it’s pretty effin weird. And I don’t mean just weird in the Asian film way, I mean it’s weird in the “What the hell!?” sorta way.
As if the opening and who’s doing what with who isn’t bad enough to set you in for a giant mind f***, things seem to get worse by the time they wrap with this odd film. I found that more or less things were less on the common sense side of things and way more reliant on the symbolic card. Still as for what a lot of it means, I’m not sure. But for better or worse, as this movie rolled along with one shock after another, I couldn’t turn away. I also laughed at a lot of stuff I probably shouldn’t have been laughing at which almost makes me want to question my own sanity and moral standing. Have I finally lost it? Has this reviewer watched one too many “out there” film? Or was this reaction the actual reaction this movie was meant to trigger? If so, good job! If not, maybe I need a head doctor asap!
I’m not sure if we should reward the actors here for such performances in this thing or have them checked out for being batshit crazy, but they do their parts well here. I mean there’s a lot of weird stuff here and not many actors outside of perhaps porn-stars would even want their faces seen doing such things. I’m not sure how an actor with Visitor Q on their resumes found work after such a film honestly. Not because they don’t do a good job, it’s just the idea of trying to figure out how they were able to do whatever they needed to do in order to pull off such roles. I’m pretty weird myself, but if asked, I just don’t think I could have done it. And this was an indie film so it’s not like they got that much money for it…I assume anyway.
If you look for a way to sum up such a tale that doesn’t seem to really have any certain way to describe it, I guess you could say it’s very artsy if nothing else. It’s also a film I don’t think would ever get made in America, or at least not in the same way as this movie presents it. I mean sure people banging their parents may be OK in some southern areas of the untied states, mainly in Alabama, but it’s frowned upon heavily by the masses in other places. And while we’ve all seen Flowers In The Attic or whatever else, I don’t think that alone would fly in such a extreme nature. Then you add in the other stuff like the “breast milk” scenes and you have something I don’t think many people would touch at all. But here this film is, in all it’s weird glory for you to see, and if you watch it you’ll probably give it the car wreck treatment of wanting to turn away but being unable to.
The Conclusion
When I tag a film with the tag “hell in a hand-basket” it means that the film generally contains something or another that just makes you feel bad for watching it, or have an overall dirty feel to it. THIS movie would be a prime example of that and what it defines. One merit it does contain however is the fact I really don’t think it’s shock for the sake of shock, there seems to be a point and method to the madness..But what an odd way to make a point.
The Rating (6.5/10)
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