Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1988)
Now, this film, or rather short film with a running time of 65 minutes, caught my attention due to the Black Sabbath song and the character Tetsuo from Akira. Although there's probably no actual link between these, they hardly prepared me for the shock that i received after this film was over.
Shot in black and white, it begins with a close up graphic shot of a metal fetishest (played by the director) slicing his leg open and inserting a metal pipe into it, it's a bold move, its sets the tone of unrepressed depravity and also high degree artistic editing and shooting. This man's wound becomes infected, removing bandages he sees maggots crawling in the wound, horrified the fetishest runs wild, and into the path of a car, driven by our protagonist Salesman. I think its the salesman, but either him or fetishest gets some metal in their brain. Plot is hardly an issue here, instead the narrative is progressed via imagery, with utter minimalistic use of dialogue. The lack of character development and interaction creates a foreign atmosphere, and the unexplained events and actions make watching this akin to having a nightmare.
As the 'plot' progresses, the salesman is attacked by a remote controlled (i believe) woman with a mechanical hand, this was by far the best moment, the stop motion creating a gliding movement for characters enhances it's nightmarish effect and the bizzare actions and chase just left me speechless, mainly through confusion. Now our salesman, is slowly becoming in iron man, after shaving and getting blade stuck in his face. A bizzare shot of a woman with a long tube extended from her groin is shown, and this tube then proceeds into salesmans anus, errrm yum... Salesman continues to mutate, his hands are metal and he has rockets (!) on his heels, but his girlfriend still makes love to him, that is until a further mutation- his cock becomes a drill, yes a moving drill. He forces his girlfriend onto him, despite her stabbing him in the neck, and she subsequentially is drilled and killed.
After this, it's revealed that salesman and his girlfriend, after killing the fetishest, dumped him in woods and then made love, explaining the previously random wood sex. Now the fetishest is back and has been controlling the salesman mutation and coming after him by being reborn via his dead girlfriend, i think. They both mutate with excellent stop motion and continue to fight, blasting around with their rocket feet, trying to mutate into each other, then a brief (random?) interlude of a bum (Renji Ishibashi for Miike fans) beating salesman up in a disturbing POV shot. Eventually the two merge into a phallice machine and decide to turn the world to metal. Charming.
Now the plot speaks for itself, much of the 65 minutes is close up shots of the slow and often perverse mutation into Iron Man. These are done marvelously, especially considering they were all homemade. The themes are very reminiscent of Cronenbergs
The Fly and there are several Lynchian moments. Also the editing and selection of shots are all well chosen, and a real nightmarish world is created. It's hard to explain how slow close up shots can create a rivetting experience. To be fair, i was shocked and rather disgusting through most events- in the hard to look but can't look away style. Despite a meagre running time, you wouldn't want more, the highly stylised shots become over evident and slowly effect is lost with the impact. Although the moving mutation is stunning, some of the prosthetics are a little poor, helped by B&W, though still one of the few negatives.
It's still a stunning film, though a little random, you can either take the little plot as good in vien to Bunel and
Un Chien Andalou, or it can be a criticism. Personally, i appreciated it the lack of plot explained through shots and not actions, though there was an actual plot, unlike
Un Chien, and aspects have difficulty being understood. By far the most disturbing film i've seen, and memorable, though not the best film i've seen. Take it or leave it, laugh or hide, cheer or fear, love or hate. Try to see it.
9.5/10
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