Yuta (Hiroto Kato), a young reporter for “an old-fashioned magazine,” moves into a new apartment and almost immediately begins spending a lot of time listening to what his neighbor Satsuki (popular Japanese adult film star Sora Aoi) is up to through their shared, paper-thin wall. In fact, it doesn’t take too long before he’s literally structured his day around her schedule and improved his listening equipment to get a better quality spying experience. His seemingly benign stalking escalates to the point where he finds out where she works and engineers excuses for them to hang out. Eventually Yuta learns that Satsuki’s boyfriend Ryo (Keita Ohno) is also stalking her, making obscene phone calls and watching her with a remote video camera, so he decides to take more direct action to help her out.
When I first read the basic plot outline of Man, Woman, and the Wall, I immediately thought of Eric Nicholas’s U.S. horror/thriller Alone with Her. The plots of the two films have a lot in common: a lonely protagonist with nice gadgets uses them to spy on a young woman and starts to insinuate himself into her life. Of course, in Alone with Her, the man is a highly disturbed, potentially dangerous stalker interested in holding the woman completely in his power and all to himself. In Man, Woman, and the Wall, Yuta’s stalking is depicted almost as more of a harmless hobby picked up by a bored, lonely man who is not a bad guy. He just, you know, enjoys the company of a nice girl and likes to masturbate while listening to her have rough sex with her boyfriend.
It’s this complete cultural disconnect that makes it difficult to engage with a film like Man, Woman, and the Wall. The way the characters act and react to the situations in which they are placed are completely foreign to the way one would likely expect. It’s somewhat difficult to sympathize with Yuta as a protagonist, even when it turns out Ryu is the “villain.” There is not much that actually happens in the film: aside from a few surprisingly graphic sex scenes and some other nudity involving the leading lady, there’s not much in the way of traditional “action.” In other words, no heart-pounding chase scenes, no building of tension, and only one somewhat clumsy fight near the end of the film. It’s likely to leave audiences unfamiliar with Japanese culture and/or filmmaking scratching their heads.
Still, Man, Woman, and the Wall is an interesting experience. Discussing specifics would spoil the film’s surprises, but the obvious Annie Hall reference in the midst of Yuta’s wooing is one of the film’s high points. The film looks as though it was shot on DV, which helps insinuate the audience in Yuta’s voyeurism but makes a few scenes too dark to make out. Whether writer/director Masashi Yamamoto meant for Man, Woman, and the Wall to comment on aspects of modern Japanese culture (urban alienation, the tendency of people to relate to each other through technology rather than directly, etc.) or just wanted to make a quirky romantic comedy with some gratuitous nudity and sex is anybody’s guess, but the fact remains that the film is an intriguing experience that should please fans of Japanese cinema.
Manborg (2011)
Originally published on Film Monthly 1 May 2013
Canadian comedy collective Astron-6 has built a devoted following over the last several years thanks to its hilariously bizarre internet output of short films and faux trailers. Their following has boomed over the last year thanks to the release of two features from the troupe, Father’s Day (released by Troma) and Manborg (released by Raven Banner in Canada and Dark Sky Films in the States). Both films are informed by the highly unique sense of humor that signals an Astron-6 production, but they are also very different. While Father’s Day‘s directorial credit is shared among the whole group, Manborg is the brainchild of Astron-6′s special effects mastermind Steven Kostanski. And while Father’s Day celebrates (and brilliantly subverts) 70s grindhouse revenge films, Manborg is a tip of the hat to another subgenre: the type of low budget straight-to-video sci-fi/action films that crowded video store shelves in the 80s and 90s and the violent arcade games that gave video a run for its money as the top choice of teenage entertainment.
The film opens near the end of the Hell Wars, when the armies of Hell rose up and took over the planet and enslaved humanity. A soldier (Matthew Kennedy) sees his brother killed by the commander of Hell’s army, Count Draculon (Adam Brooks). He attacks Draculon but is quickly dispatched, despite his bravery. The soldier’s body is dragged away and rebuilt by an unknown party as Manborg: part man, part robot. Some time later he awakens to a world completely under the control of Draculon, and is quickly captured by demonic police along with prison escapee #1 Man (Ludwig Lee). They are returned to police custody, where #1 Man is reunited with his former resistance colleagues Mina (Meredith Sweeney) and Justice (Conor Sweeney).
The prisoners are forced to do battle in an arena for the bloodthirsty legions of Hell’s minions in order to live, their fights orchestrated by The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie). While in the arena, Manborg attracts the attention of Dr. Scorpius (Adam Brooks), a human scientist working with Draculon and The Baron. Scorpius pits Manborg against a fierce creature in the arena as a test, and Manborg manages to control his newfound cybernetic powers to pull out a victory. Shortly thereafter, Manborg and his fellow prisoners manage to escape and flee to the wastelands outside the city. Here Manborg learns the secret of his creation and his ultimate destiny, leading his new friends back to the city for a showdown with the armies of Hell and Count Draculon himself.
If all that sounds mostly straightforward, rest assured that Manborg is packed with surprises, not least of which is how well its characters are drawn in such a short running time. Kostanski and co-writer Jeremy Gillespie manage to make the viewer empathize with what are essentially cartoon characters, helped along by solid performances from all the cast and some truly inspired choices for the characters. Shot almost entirely against green screens, the world of Manborg looks like a cut scene from a Sega CD game. It’s a gleeful sugar rush of no-budget action: anime fight choreography, claymation monsters, the inexplicably Australian guy, etc. etc. Kostanski and his Astron-6 teammates pack Manborg with more laughs, action and heart in 72 minutes (including the amazing faux trailer for Bio-Cop that runs after the film’s end credits) than any dozen Hollywood action blockbusters. It’s absolutely required viewing, both because everything Astron-6 does is essential by definition and because it’s a true testament to what committed, passionate filmmakers can create with the barest minimum of resources.
Mandingo (1975)
Originally published on Film Monthly 4 December 2015
In the canon of 70s exploitation cinema, there may be no category of films more uncomfortable to watch for modern viewers than “slavesploitation.” Hardly anyone in the audience at a 2015 Fantastic Fest screening of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi’s notorious “Mondo” slavery film Farewell Uncle Tom had seen it before, which was shocking in a room full of hundreds of die-hard cult and exploitation film fans. However, there is at least one of these films which many cinephiles will likely at least know by name: Richard Fleischer’s Mandingo. Produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company and released by Paramount Pictures in 1975, Mandingo is slavesploitation done Hollywood style. It was typical of the big studios to attempt to capitalize on popular trends in independent cinema in the 60s and 70s, such as Fox hiring Russ Meyer for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls after his streak of independently produced and distributed hit sexploitation films. Hollywood had already been making money in Blaxploitation, but even in such a climate Mandingo must have seemed like a risky proposition. A few years earlier audiences had lined up to see Shaft kicking ass, but this was an overheated melodrama based on a best-selling novel from the 1950s that focused mainly on the white owners of a plantation in decline. The film was a big enough hit to spawn a sequel, and has proven to be influential for better or for worse. This makes Mandingo an important film in exploitation film history, but how does it hold up as a film in its own right?
Hammond Maxwell (Perry King) lives on the decaying plantation of Falconhurst with his father Warren (James Mason) and their slaves. Hammond
has fathered a number of “suckers” with some of the young slave girls (or “bed wenches”), but Warren is thinking it’s about time for Hammond to marry a white woman and produce an heir to Falconhurst. When one of Hammond’s cousins comes to visit and ask Warren for a loan to help out his plantation, Warren senses an opportunity. He sends Hammond to negotiate the loan and meet with his cousin Blanche (Susan George) to see if she will marry him. During the trip Hammond stops at a slave auction where he purchases Ganymede (Ken Norton). He’s excited to bring home both a bride and a “Mandingo,” a strong male slave who can fight for sport. “Mede” quickly proves his worth in an impromptu fight with another slave while Hammond is visiting a brothel, but Hammond is enraged when he discovers Blanche is not a virgin. They return to Falconhurst to Warren’s delight in his new “Mandingo” stud and daughter-in-law, but Hammond ignores Blanche in favor of slave Ellen (Brenda Sykes). Blanche descends into alcoholism as Hammond completely neglects her, constantly training Mede for a big fight during the day and sleeping in his room with Ellen at night. Tensions mount and Blanche makes a decision that could tear Falconhurst apart.
There are a many things that set Mandingo apart from more overly lurid contemporary exploitation fare like Russ Meyer’s Black Snake, but the most immediately obvious is probably the cast. As the patriarchs of the crumbling ruin of Falconhurst, Perry King and James Mason are great. King is particularly noteworthy, giving the character of Hammond an uneasily sympathetic humanity between bouts of cruelty and pointless rage. Mason, on the other hand, mostly plays Warren as a straightforward villain, a bitter old racist desperate to keep the Maxwell bloodline going. Susan George unfortunately/typically isn’t given much to do but shriek and cry, but there’s no denying she’s great at it. Ken Norton ably plays Mede, but like George he isn’t given much to do but brawl and look good without a shirt. The slaves, who initially appear as uniformly subservient and loyal to their hateful masters, become more complex as more time is spent with them. These actors are uniformly excellent, giving the film many of its most memorable characterizations. The best of these supporting characters are Richard Ward as Agamemnon, an old Falconhurst slave who secretly learns to read in defiance of the Maxwells, and Ji-Tu Cumbuka as Cicero, the “troublemaker” and runaway who teaches other slaves to read and insists that the white men know what they’re doing is wrong.
But despite its strong cast, lavish production design, and Hollywood pedigree (director Fleischer co-directed Tora! Tora! Tora! with Kinji Fukusaku among many other high-profile films), the fact remains that Mandingo is a film that exploits the darkest time in America’s history for entertainment. This is going to automatically earn the film a dismissal from many viewers, regardless of the quality of the filmmaking, acting, etc. That’s certainly a valid response, but while one can argue endlessly about whether fiction films about slavery are inherently racist, there is no denying the huge influence the success of Mandingo has had on popular American culture. Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained borrows heavily from the film, and in turn that film’s popularity was probably a deciding factor in Mandingo getting a new transfer and Blu-ray release. Unfortunately, the new Olive Films Blu-ray and DVD release is completely bare bones. The transfer looks fantastic, but there’s nothing else on the disc at all. This is seriously disappointing, since Mandingo is the kind of film that begs for special features to help explain the context in which it was produced and released and what kind of subsequent impact it has had on pop culture. For anyone who has heard or read about the film and has never seen it before, this release gives them a chance to see it in the best audiovisual presentation it has had on home video in the States, which is commendable. But anyone who wants to know more about how and why Mandingo came to be will have to do all that work on their own.
Maniac (2012)
Originally published on Film Monthly 24 October 2013
Alexandre Aja’s transition to the American film industry has been a strange one, mostly due to its relative success. While fellow French directors were brought to the States and foundered (Malefique‘s Eric Valette adapting Takashi Miike’s One Missed Call, for example), Aja seemed to take to remakes surprisingly well. His first English-language film, The Hills Have Eyes, was generally well received, and even his take on Joe Dante’s Piranha garnered better reviews than anyone could have anticipated. So it was with some excitement that his name came to be attached to the 2012 remake of William Lustig’s sleazy slasher classic Maniac, although that was somewhat tempered by the fact that Aja was on board with the film as producer and not as director. Franck Khalfoun, Aja’s frequent collaborator and director of the surprisingly solid P2, was brought on to direct a remake that many horror fans have been opposed to on general principal, and the casting of Elijah Wood in the lead only added to the confusion. Fortunately, Maniac has turned out as something that hews close to the original film while striking out stylistically in very interesting ways.
Elijah Wood plays Frank Zito, a lonely young man who runs a mannequin restoration shop he inherited from his mother. During the day, Frank restores vintage mannequins. By night, he stalks and kills beautiful women, bringing their scalps back to his apartment behind the store and stapling them to his mannequins to keep him company. One day he finds photographer Anna (Norah Arnezeder) taking photographs of the mannequins in his shop window under his security gate. He opens the gate and lets her in to take more pictures and explains his work. The two enter almost immediately into a tentative flirtation, or as much of one as Frank can handle, and Frank agrees to help Anna put together her next gallery exhibition. For the first time, Frank can see the possibility of having an actual relationship, but his demons have a strong hold on him and won’t let go without a fight. And the annoying people in Anna’s life are making it so hard to not kill them…
The most immediately noticeable change from the original Maniac is that the film is done almost entirely in a first-person perspective from inside Frank’s head. The first-person camera is an old horror trick, especially popular in the slasher film, but it is usually only done for short stretches to build tension or misdirect the audience. In this case, the audience is forced to become intimately familiar with the way Frank sees the world: a discussion on a dinner date turns sour when his date starts bleeding from the scalp and everyone in the restaurant stops what they’re doing to stare at him. Frank’s tenuous grasp on reality is underlined by the fact that the film offers viewers no other objective outside “reality” to compare with it. Perhaps the most unsettling and effective use of this is the mannequins used to show how Frank sees his victims after he kills them. Instead of lingering on gruesome makeup effects, the film presents the victims as mannequins. This simple trick is one of the most interesting ways Aja and Khalfoun have reinterpreted the iconography of the original film and made something new.
Other changes are more subtle but no less effective. Replacing Joe Spinell’s creepy, greasy Frank with Elijah Wood makes perfect sense. In the original film, whenever Frank is trying to interact as a normal person, the film bordered on the comical, especially in regards to his relationship with fashion photographer Anna (Caroline Munro). Wood gives the impression of vulnerability, both in his physicality and in his performance. It is not hard to imagine other people seeing him as simply quirky and withdrawn, although the truth the audience is privy to is much darker. Frank and Anna’s relationship is much more believable in this version, and therefore that much more crushing when things go inevitably wrong. This Maniac generates considerably more sympathy for its central character than the original, but offers no better alternatives for his future. In fact, so many of the film’s changes are so well considered that it is unfortunate that it keeps the Freudian explanation for Frank’s insanity. Given how great the rest of the film is–the first-person perspective, the fantastic cinematography, the excellent soundtrack, and the great performances–it’s a serious disappointment that the story remains mired in such simplistic psychology. Despite this glaring issue,
Maniac is still easily one of the best horror films of the year, and an intriguing new take on an undisputed classic.
Martyrs (2008)
Originally published on Film Monthly 20 May 2009
The phrase “torture porn” has been worn out for a long while now. Lazy critics have been tagging any standard horror or thriller with even a hint of inflicted suffering as part of this basically nonexistent subgenre for so long that it’s become even more meaningless than it was when it was first slapped onto one of the Saw movies. Films that actually fit into the literal meaning of “torture porn,” however, are few and far between and mostly way under the radar of mainstream horror films. Films like the August Underground series, Andrey Iskanov’s Philosophy of a Knife and other extreme underground horror films depict protracted scenes of queasily convincing torture and murder. Films that actually fit the definition of “torture porn” make Turistas look like Don’t Drink the Water.
So it makes perfect sense that now, years after the popularization of the phrase, a filmmaker of the New Wave of French Horror (as it’s now being called) has created what is either the genre’s transcendent masterpiece or its absolute nadir. Depending on which camp you’re in, Martyrs could be either. Director Pascal Laugier’s vicious take on the “torture porn” film has been playing festivals and severely dividing audiences for a while, and it was picked up for DVD release through Dimension Extreme here in the States.
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 45