 Having been a student of Human behavior all my life I can say with certainty that I cannot be shocked by our actions. Any of us, at any time, could end up like "pick your family member" from this movie.
Families, in America at least, are under constant pressure to abandon many sensibilities and fit into the conveyor-belt mentality of PC, consumerism, isolationism, fink, patsy...the horrible list goes on. The pulls away from central values are strong - the effects of legislation, public schools, conditioning to distrust anything not neatly fitting into an accepted pattern of behavior, to name a few - are outrageous and powerful. Certainly Miike thinks the same of Japan.
The family in this story has been lost for some time -- daughter hooks, son is a coin: coward on one side and ruthless tormentor on the other, mom has lost her "woman" and dad is an empty hedonist with no soul - no reason; a rookie in the world of pros.
All of the members in this family are hurting and lost, but on many levels they are getting theirs, so they really don't see much reason to fix what is killing them. At one point in the movie I saw that "blackness" had this family acting like puppets on a string. This family reacted instead of acting.
Enter Visitor Q. Non-judging and on-track. Apparently he had parents and a family that provided him with that most essential nourishment that all of our id's and souls need: Love. I loved his introduction. He introduced himself to dad with the one real thing that dad needed - a crack in the head! Some people need to learn the hard way. He introduced himself personally to the other family members the same way - by giving to them what they needed. It was interesting to see this man among the family - nobody knew who he was and nobody questioned his presence in the home. Well, at least in any meaningful way.
As a Dad watching this movie I would destroy planets before I let my family fall into the despair that we witness in this movie. I asked - at which point did these people become so lost as to let this happen? In who's world is this chump father ready for that responsibility? Bah -- I knew I was being unreasonable - as I already wrote - this could happen to anybody. I didn't feel powerless, though -- I felt pretty good about myself and very powerful. I felt like a decent, seeking and learning man bearing witness to the wonders that I have helped create in my own family and I thanked myself and partner (my one true love) for having guts...and for dishing out love because it IS going out of style!
Visitor Q has only one message: the most important thing in the world is Love. My children know this and I can see that they already know that many people don't. I hope they stay the course.
Many of you will not watch this movie. Of those of you that do I fear you'll only see the face of it, the symptomatic behavior of self-destruction. I fear you will not see what Miike is trying to say to you and that's too bad. Miike is one of the only movie directors with the balls to to spell it out for us - to lay it all down and throw ourselves right back into our callous and fearful faces. He's a gem in a world of shit.
If you do watch this movie, see it as I did, in a crowd. We this night were single men and fathers. We all had our take and our discussion throughout and following the movie was prophetic and brilliant. Following my assertion that the movie was simple and poignant I paved the way with some emotional comments and all of us agreed. I confessed that I might cry and all of us hard-asses went right back to being cradled in momma's arms.
I'd posit that Miike was NOT revealing this character study to merely shock us into further numbness -- instead he put it all there and with it said: "HEY - you goddamned moron, you coward, you disgrace - WAKE THE FUCK UP!"
I'm no movie critic - I don't care what you like and I don't care to tell you what you should like. I also think the review I just finished is trash - an ignorant man trying to write about how a piece of art made him feel. Well, I don't have the vocabulary. --machiner
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