Monday, August 17, 2009

Visitor Q

What can I say about this film? This film will probably end up as the weirdest film I've seen in 2009. Visitor Q is directed by Miike Takashi, a renowned Japanese director known for his violent, highly controversial movies.

On the surface, this film will never be appreciated by the public because of its incest, murderous, druggy, sexual, violent content. Out of the six major characters in the film (Yamazaki family, The Visitor, and , four of them were in nudity for more than a brief period. Drug uses, mutilation of dead bodies were portrayed throughout the entire film and certainly Visitor Q is not something for kids.

Under the surface, the film talks about the very commonly seen issue of Japanese society: the lack of bondings between family members. The Yamazaki family was a family that had their issues: the father was a hard working reporter that was sexually abused by street bullys, when he was trying to report a news story; the mother was a drug (possibly heroin) addict that was bullied all the time by her son; the daughter was a high school student that sells her body for money, and she did not mind who the customers are, as long as she gets paid; the son was probably as junior high students who is heavily bullied in school and took his frustration on him mother.

The film began when the father and his daughter were in a love hotel. The father wanted to film a documentary about the prostitution problem of high school girls. He recorded the whole period of the sexual engage. Even though he was trying to resist his sexual temptation, but could not resist the seduction of his teenage daughter and the two had sex. After he paid for sex and ready to go home, he was hit on the back of his head by a mysterious person, known as the Visitor. Then the setting switched to Yamazaki's home, where the mother was whipped by the son, because she bought him an "ugly" toothbrush. The father brought the Visitor home as a guest and the Visitor changed the fate of the whole family...

Takashi probably wanted to talk about the "reunion" of the family by the Visitor. The Visitor was seen holding a camcorder all the time and filmed most of the events from the family members. Visitor's departure at the end of the film symbolized that the Visitor had fixed the family's issue and he was no longer needed to be with the Yamazaki family. For example, the father and mother were happy as a newly wed couple when they helped each other to dispose of the dead body of the father's female co-worker. The mother was much more happier after she was able to lactate from her nipples. This probably meant that the mother had returned to her role, from a heroin addict to the matriarch of the family. The father was able to returned to the role of a father after he decided to kill the bullies that haunted her son. He changed his role from an observer to a father whose main responsiblity is to protect the members of his family. By killing the bulies, the son was freed from bullies and he could concentrate to play his role as a member of his family: to study hard for a good, reputable high school. The visitor was probably an "invinsible fellow" who guided the family back to how it was supposed to be.

I have to warn, this film is only for mature audience only, due to its gore, disgusting content. However, those contents were treated with light msuic, and the effect was that it became more like a black comedy by suggesting the audience not to take those content literally. The film is not for those people does not like to think when they watch films and will take every single content literally. Remember, this is just a movie, so do not take its contents too literally and start to condemn in its moral issues. Finally, even though this is a heck of a strange film, it is deserved to be watched. 7.5/10

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