Movies: Tsukamoto

...or I just got a netflix account and it's hard to believe I've lived three years without one.

I digress.

When I first heard about Nightmare Detective a few years ago I was intrigued to see how Tsukamoto Shinya's abstract sensibilites would translate into mainstream Japanese cinema. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that it doesn't. I guess the marketing campaign for the film threw me off along with hundreds of angry j-horror devotees. Shame on me for not knowing better.

Tsukamoto is one of those artists whose style is to idiosyncratic to be recognized as the work of anyone but Tsukamoto - and Nightmare Detective does not disappoint in this respect. The film contains many of the staples I've come to expect from his past films(he admittedly conceived it during his Tetsuo days) though it lacks a lot of the energy of his work in the nineties. The frantic handheld camera and visceral gore are all there but there is something stale to it, likely because it's all things he's done before. The only major change here is the setting and the exposition that uses more defined supernatural designs, which he alluded to in his early work as something more akin to allegory than as a plot device. Or to be more specific, he tries to imbue some kind of explanation this time around, instead of letting the abstract wierdness speak for itself. This is about as close as he gets to making a commercial film, thank heavens.

There are a couple of scenes unusual to Tsukamoto's canon - namely any scene involving the police investigation. I feel like a tool saying anything negative about these snippets. They are pretty standard fare for Japanese horror, and so I'm kind of ambivalent towards them. He directs us through the process effectively if not gracefully, and the payoff is worth sticking around for.

On to the good stuff...for such a fiercly independent director that began his career using the least sophisticated film equipment available it makes almost no sense to think that he could move so easily into the world of HD. But he does it and he does it well. Even with all those thousands of vivid color pixels he still manages to make his vision of Tokyo look like something completely alien and terrifying without using any discernable use of CGI.

In summary, not his best film. Snake of June felt as if it should have been a wonderful and concise button to that period in his career. Vital was an exciting experiment that revamped a lot of the themes form his Tetsuo days, but Nightmare Detective finds him lingering in the late nineties. Tsukamoto even casts himself once again as the antagonist, but I've seen him play this part in Snake of June and Tetsuo. But when you launch your career with Tetsuo the Iron Man, can you ever really hope to top it? Scenes pictured below contain very disturbing imagery.



Nightmare Detective Trailer...The opening monologue tags it pretty effectively as a Tsukamoto film. I think the correct operatives are polished and refined, though considerably less exciting than pictured above.


The sequel. Don't remember much about this one.


Personal fav...he effectively makes Tokyo look like his own creation in some of those shots.


An example of what's missing from his newest effort. The energy of this film is unparalleled.