Miike Takeshi, director of 'Visitor Q,' is also responsible for Japanese horror classics 'Audition' and 'Ichi The Killer,' two films which significantly raised the bar for on screen violence and visceral depravity so you could be forgiven for going into this one expecting a full on blood bath. I guarantee you will spend a lot of the viewing time squirming, but the discomfort is caused by more psychological means this time round.
The film concerns itself with the arrival of 'the visitor' into the lives of a small Japanese family and the effect he has on their confidence and the structure of their family. He is a striking figure make no mistake about it; his first on screen appearance comes when he batters the father of the family around the head with a large rock and as he strides around nonchalantly in tight black jeans and a bright red shirt, he remains a constant, looming presence. However, it is the family themselves who are the real focus of events. Takeshi treads a similar path to the likes of 'American Beauty,' stripping down the idealism of the nuclear family, but where 'Beauty' was cautious and tacked on a heavy dose of sentimentality, Takeshi has no time for such matters. He bludgeons right into the family ideal and rips it apart within minutes. In the first ten minutes, the father has sex with his own teenage daughter who has run away to become a prostitute, the teenage son beats the helpless mother who happens to be injecting heroin every night and also works as a prostitute herself. Dysfunctional is not the word.
Each of the characters is lost, confused and totally hopeless until the visitor arrives and that is where things swerve directly off reality and plummet headlong into full on insanity. Teenagers are murdered, corpses raped and in one of the most bizarre scenes in film history, a woman lactates so much it's surprising she doesn't shrivel up from dehydration. This is not a date movie by a long shot, it is best watched on your own when you can appreciate some of the subtleties and as nothing is really resolved by the ending credits, make your own conclusions about it. It may not be a nice film and it may be extremely uncomfortable to watch all the way through, but nevertheless remains compelling viewing.
The film concerns itself with the arrival of 'the visitor' into the lives of a small Japanese family and the effect he has on their confidence and the structure of their family. He is a striking figure make no mistake about it; his first on screen appearance comes when he batters the father of the family around the head with a large rock and as he strides around nonchalantly in tight black jeans and a bright red shirt, he remains a constant, looming presence. However, it is the family themselves who are the real focus of events. Takeshi treads a similar path to the likes of 'American Beauty,' stripping down the idealism of the nuclear family, but where 'Beauty' was cautious and tacked on a heavy dose of sentimentality, Takeshi has no time for such matters. He bludgeons right into the family ideal and rips it apart within minutes. In the first ten minutes, the father has sex with his own teenage daughter who has run away to become a prostitute, the teenage son beats the helpless mother who happens to be injecting heroin every night and also works as a prostitute herself. Dysfunctional is not the word.
Each of the characters is lost, confused and totally hopeless until the visitor arrives and that is where things swerve directly off reality and plummet headlong into full on insanity. Teenagers are murdered, corpses raped and in one of the most bizarre scenes in film history, a woman lactates so much it's surprising she doesn't shrivel up from dehydration. This is not a date movie by a long shot, it is best watched on your own when you can appreciate some of the subtleties and as nothing is really resolved by the ending credits, make your own conclusions about it. It may not be a nice film and it may be extremely uncomfortable to watch all the way through, but nevertheless remains compelling viewing.