Battle Royale
I have seen Battle Royale yesterday and while it is definitely not right up my alley - I avoid slasher/horror movies like a plague normally - I really, really liked it. It is consequent in its portrayal of violence. It goes all the way.
To sum its premise up for everyone who hasn't seen it - sometimes in the near future due to economic troubles and high unemployment Japan's youth has become uncontrollable and that's why the government introduces the Battle Royale Act. One class (around 40 people) of 9th graders (fourteen, fifteen-year olds) is randomly chosen to spend three days on an evacuated island. Everyone is given a weapon of some sort and a collar that explodes (and ruptures your jugular, killing you) if you try to take it off or are in a danger zone. If at the beginning of the third day more than one student is still alive all collars explode.
Yes, there is a bit a Lord of the Flies in it, a bit Series 7 (which no one has seen anyway) (and for some inexplainable reason I felt reminded of Marleen Gorris' The Last Island), but mainly it's a pretty unique plot.
The movie itself is shocking and it's violent and ironically the most shocking moment for me was the one moment where the violence was actually somewhat aesthetically pleasing. I know that the idea of violence being aesthetically pleasing is controversial, but there are directors who specialise in that kind of thing, are actually famous for it, like John Woo, Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino. The scene was the fight scene with lighthouse girls and I guess one has to see it to understand it. It was a visually very like a John Woo fight scene; there were guns, there was the drama, the editing, you know it was the kind of scene on is used to seeing being done with guys in black suits and ties or even with women in yellow track suits (There is a yellow track suit in Battle Royale - worn by the actress who also got a role in Kill Bill.), but here it is worn by fourteen-year-olds who look even younger, like they are barely beyond playing with Barbie dolls, and they wear these school uniforms with ruffled underskirts and... it is still aesthetically pleasing, even more so than the usual black tie affair as the contrast between the ruffles and the guns and blood is incredible, but exactly that contrast especially with the age of characters/actresses makes that ultra-disturbing. Death is very ugly in Battle Royale with the exception of this scene and yet the prettiness was even more unsettling than the usual ugliness. I cannot explain that one properly, I am afraid.
What makes this movie brilliant beyond certain directorial choices (like the use of music) is the way violence was handled. Everyone in the movie who used violence as a tool of survival didn't survive. Of course, not everyone who didn't, survived, but everyone who did, died. The movie is consequent, it follows its bloody premise all the way to its logical conclusion and that is pretty gutsy. And who would have thought that a fairly graphic movie about adolescent killing each other has something profound to say?
The strange thing is that my year-old signature over at FAP contains the quote "It's like the fandom version of Battle Royale" - a description of online debating that is fairly accurate - and I have never known how accurate until yesterday. Although, I wonder, in a one-to-one translation of BR to the DT, who would be who?
Hmmm.... *screens all comments, awaits the answers with bated breath*
Okay, semi... quarter-bated breath.
To sum its premise up for everyone who hasn't seen it - sometimes in the near future due to economic troubles and high unemployment Japan's youth has become uncontrollable and that's why the government introduces the Battle Royale Act. One class (around 40 people) of 9th graders (fourteen, fifteen-year olds) is randomly chosen to spend three days on an evacuated island. Everyone is given a weapon of some sort and a collar that explodes (and ruptures your jugular, killing you) if you try to take it off or are in a danger zone. If at the beginning of the third day more than one student is still alive all collars explode.
Yes, there is a bit a Lord of the Flies in it, a bit Series 7 (which no one has seen anyway) (and for some inexplainable reason I felt reminded of Marleen Gorris' The Last Island), but mainly it's a pretty unique plot.
The movie itself is shocking and it's violent and ironically the most shocking moment for me was the one moment where the violence was actually somewhat aesthetically pleasing. I know that the idea of violence being aesthetically pleasing is controversial, but there are directors who specialise in that kind of thing, are actually famous for it, like John Woo, Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino. The scene was the fight scene with lighthouse girls and I guess one has to see it to understand it. It was a visually very like a John Woo fight scene; there were guns, there was the drama, the editing, you know it was the kind of scene on is used to seeing being done with guys in black suits and ties or even with women in yellow track suits (There is a yellow track suit in Battle Royale - worn by the actress who also got a role in Kill Bill.), but here it is worn by fourteen-year-olds who look even younger, like they are barely beyond playing with Barbie dolls, and they wear these school uniforms with ruffled underskirts and... it is still aesthetically pleasing, even more so than the usual black tie affair as the contrast between the ruffles and the guns and blood is incredible, but exactly that contrast especially with the age of characters/actresses makes that ultra-disturbing. Death is very ugly in Battle Royale with the exception of this scene and yet the prettiness was even more unsettling than the usual ugliness. I cannot explain that one properly, I am afraid.
What makes this movie brilliant beyond certain directorial choices (like the use of music) is the way violence was handled. Everyone in the movie who used violence as a tool of survival didn't survive. Of course, not everyone who didn't, survived, but everyone who did, died. The movie is consequent, it follows its bloody premise all the way to its logical conclusion and that is pretty gutsy. And who would have thought that a fairly graphic movie about adolescent killing each other has something profound to say?
The strange thing is that my year-old signature over at FAP contains the quote "It's like the fandom version of Battle Royale" - a description of online debating that is fairly accurate - and I have never known how accurate until yesterday. Although, I wonder, in a one-to-one translation of BR to the DT, who would be who?
Hmmm.... *screens all comments, awaits the answers with bated breath*
Okay, semi... quarter-bated breath.