Advertisement

Movies & TV News & Features

Edgy experiments

Rating: NNNNN


Origins of Japanese Experimental Cinema (Pleasure Dome) Rating: NNNN

For viewers who would object to a filmmaker breaking the taboo against the portrayal of pre-pubescent boys having sex with adult women dressed as scary mannequins, a warning: parts of this retrospective of Japanese experimental films might not be for you. If you can get past the sensation-mongering scenes in Shuji Teruyama’s legendary Emperor Tomato Ketchup, though, you will be richly rewarded.

This program of hard-to-find films from the past four decades deftly hooks up the sensual and the cerebral. In the former category, there’s a special emphasis on the fragility and mutability of the human body, ranging from Burning Star, Kenji Onishi’s reflection on what happens after a loved one’s death, to Flesh, Tachibana Karou’s fascinated look at a woolly bodybuilder.

On the abstract end of the scale, there’s Junichi Okuyama’s pleasingly synaesthetic short, My Movie Melodies, in which we learn what the grain on a block of wood sounds like, and Takashi Ito’s eye-popping, mind-bending, potentially seizure-inducing animation, Spacey. Is it a meditation on infinity? An experiment in geometry? A vision of hell? Curator Ian Toews will be present to elucidate. (January 23, Cinecycle)

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted