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 It's
tough for me to approach a Takashi Miike film without certain preconceived
notions that may color my view. I'm not really a fan of his work, and generally
find them to be puerile and not particularly entertaining. He simply loads the
screen with blood, guts and other inappropriate bodily fluids and insists that
it's clever. However, when I heard that Takeshi Kitano was part of Miike's next
film, "Izo," I was intrigued. I have liked, or at least appreciated,
the Kitano films I've seen, so I had hopes that this union of titans may come
out well. I should have known better.
The first sign of trouble comes in the form of that last
resort for heavy-handed hacks -- stock footage. It ruined "Casshern",
was the weakest part of "Save
The Green Planet" and "The 5th Element", and "Izo"
is peppered with them -- everything from birth films to the usual WWII battle
footages. The introductory montage segues into the film proper, which opens by
lifting the closing sequence from Hideo Gosha's "Hitokiri", with the
titular anti-hero, historical mass murderer Izo Okada (Kazuya Nakayama), being
crucified in Tokugawa-era Japan. Miike barely lets the oil warm up before
hitting the throttle, and we get to see Izo repeatedly run through with spears
in loving, bladder evacuating detail, a scene that sets the tone for the rest of
the film.
"Izo" consists of a series of set pieces that
jump from scene to scene, recalling the structure of "Pistol
Opera," except here Izo jumps back and forth through time fighting
hordes of evil agents from random time periods. He rumbles with modern SWAT
commandos in an 1800's neighborhood, Meiji-era police in the back alleys of
modern day Tokyo, and vampiric insurance salesmen in some primeval cave.
Throughout the proceedings, the film cuts to a secluded cabal of historical
authority figures as they cogitate on the irrationality of Izo's existence --
something to do with Izo's grudge against the authority that made him into a
murderer in real life, yet sentenced him to death for those very acts.
Three-fourth of the way into "Izo", I came to the
realization that I felt about "Izo" the same way I felt about "Kichiku."
The two films are surprisingly similar in content, and both purport to convey
some sort of message about man's proclivity towards inflicting horrible violence
upon his fellow man in order to gain authority. I don't know, maybe that
blood-soaked sliced Daikon radish was supposed to be a symbol of man's impotence
in the face of violence. However, Miike gets so hung up in beating the audience
over the head with the violence part that he forgets the message. As a result,
"Izo" becomes an endurance test not of the viewer's stomach, but of
the viewer's patience, which is the cardinal sin for any film. At least
"Kichiku" had the good sense to pull its own plug at around 90
minutes, whereas "Izo" lumbers on for an interminable 128 minutes.
Philosophy not withstanding, a film with this much violence
ought to at least be a visceral experience. The crazy thing about
"Izo" is that, despite the epic level of carnage onscreen, none of it
is exciting. Not once did my pulse quicken while scores of chronologically
challenged combatants were repeatedly sliced into quivering sushi. Even the
sequence where Izo hacks apart a school hallway full of teenage girls failed to
register a blip.
A major part of the problem is Izo himself. By the halfway
mark he's been reduced to a screaming, drooling and convulsing demon complete
with red eyes and fangs. Also, a vagabond guitarist keeps showing up regardless
of the time period to sing a song that I suspect is supposed to be emotional,
but instead sounds like someone is garroting him. By the end of the film, I
wanted to get up and strangle the poor bastard myself.
But Miike isn't done insulting the audience just yet.
We still have to endure some of the worst faux philosophical dialogue I have
ever heard, the kind of tripe that makes the ruminations on existence in the two
"Matrix" sequels sound like recitations of The Vedas. Izo is presented
as the personification of evil, vengeance and hatred -- all of man's sinful
actions rolled up into one being -- and he's on a mission of divine retribution
against the power structure that perpetuates it. However, the make-up of that
power structure is rather hazy -- is it manifested in totalitarian regimes,
organized religion, or is it just a trait of man? Does Izo represent man's
attempt to 'get even' with his self-imposed taskmaster, or is he a manifestation
of man's perpetual internal conflict? In the end, the philosophical statement
that Miike is trying to make is that violence is an inherent flaw in man. A vice
that is self-fulfilling, yet a shortcoming that man seems unwilling, rather than
unable, to rectify. All of this is even made humorously obvious when we see a
futile Izo running around on an ethereal Mobius strip.
I kept hoping that Takeshi Kitano's presence could bring
some order to the chaos, but after seeing his performance I wondered why he's in
the film at all. He just periodically delivers preposterous line readings like,
"We are but humans, after all. Just a glimpse of a dream..." Quite
frankly, I think the fact that Kitano's face was partially paralyzed in a
motorcycle accident is the only reason he was able to deliver these types of
lines with a straight face.
"Izo" is the 8th Miike film I've seen, and
with the exception of "Audition",
I've been thoroughly disappointed with all of them. I really can't see the
appeal of Miike's films, yet I can't explain why I've seen so many of them.
Morbid curiosity, I suppose. It amazes me that, with 64 films to his credit,
Miike's work still looks like the product of an amateur. Cast in western
equivalents, he comes off as a 3rd rate Lynch/Cronenberg hybrid, but whereas
with Lynch and Cronenberg you get the sense that there is a level of background
cleverness in even their worst, most incomprehensible works, the same can't be
said for Miike's. I liken Miike's films to formless noise -- all sound and fury
signifying nothing.
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