Blind Beast

This is like Cronenberg and Miike teaming up to direct Psycho meets In the Realm of the Senses. Quite intense (but not terribly graphic) for 1969. It covers a lot of themes: artistic obsession, sexual power plays, Oedipal relationships, and sadomasochism. Its handling of these topics is a bit simplistic, but what it lacks in depth it makes up for in freakiness. Michio's studio features some of the most delightfully bizarro set design I've ever seen.

This shit is crazy!

Stop reading here if you haven’t seen it. A man struggles to adopt the necessity of his defect (to quote Stiegler reading Bousquet), having developed a co-dependent relationship with his mother. By forcefully inducing a process of co-individuation, he succeeds in finding a path towards adult masculinity, but the excitement this causes leads him and his partner to abandon any pretense at sublimating their desire, instead embarking on a quest for the ecstasies of the infinite, the drives unbound.

"Childish" you might think, "twisted" you may claim, but what it actually is - a hymn to all forms of mutual pain which are not physical, are not transmitted by touch.

This is a weird movie that's hard to fully understand, but it's very rich and intriguing. It touches on sexual repression, the intersection of pain and pleasure, the Oedipal struggle, the importance of the sense of touch, and of course... blindness. I think blindness is a pretty interesting topic in general, and my favorite scene in the film was the one where the sculptor Aki deftly chased the model Michio around his surreal studio at high speeds, despite being blind.

Disturbing, beautiful, haunting

"The world of touch... the world of insects... the lower orders such as the jellyfish... those who venture to the edge of such worlds... can only expect a dark, dank death to envelop them." I did not need to go through the last 30 minutes of the film and the excessive portrayal of sexual deviancy, degeneracy and masochism to learn that. Amazing sets and theatricality, although the acting became a tad too expressive towards the end. Intriguing, bizarre and out there. Memorable.

It's quite striking how what is essentially Japanese grindhouse manages to walk the tightrope between pornography and philosophy. Much like the classic Japanese-gothic short stories (e.g. The Caterpillar) there is a mix of tradition & modernity, a collision of cultural forces as a means of some greater synthesis. This strange little flick is a kind of mix of Psycho, The Fly, and Hellraiser. Immensely innovative for its time and with a surprsingly solid performance from Midori, it's a must-watch.

If you don't take it too seriously; it's a likable, funny, little pink film. I mean storylines don't make that much sense, there's no attempt at all lol. On the other hand, it has undeniably high production values.

Blind Beast seems more like a farce than a typical drama, since it's very hard to take anything any of the characters do all that seriously. Sex object model gets kidnapped by a blind virgin with a hilarious oedipal complex? Check. Sex object model falls prey to stockholm syndrome and falls in lust with her kidnapper? Suuure. The director might be indulging himself a bit, but the movie is too playful and entertaining for me to get up in arms about it. Let's just say it revels in its perversions.

* Casting, Acting : 7 * Script : 8.5 * Directing, Aura : 8 * Ease of Viewing : 7.5 * Naked Eye : 8

Masumura brings such great youthful energy to many of his films, they almost feel enthusiastic. In Blind Beast he takes this and mixes it with all sorts of things; elements of horror, Oedipal interests, artistic obsession, and in particular psycho-sexual madness. The end mixture is one that is engaging, fascinating, bizarre and constantly shifting and changing, an experience that is at once both fun and somewhat off-putting (in a good way) to watch.

Rich film that readily invites comparisons to In the Realm of the Senses, the Woman in the Dunes, the Watcher in the Attic, as well as any number of pure exploitation films. The middle stretch is outstanding: intense and disturbing. And while I wish I could say every ounce of sexual content was in the service of art, the film certainly didn't do enough to make me believe that just being raped enough could make the heroine fall in love. I think you need to already believe that idea going in.

Packed with bizarre, risque and erotic imagery, it's hard to believe this was made in the 60s, being a good twenty years ahead of its time. Multi-layered, claustrophobic and filled with sadomasochism, "Blind Beast" is a hypnotic and disturbing tour de force and a criminally underrated classic. "Darling, recently I've been going blind"

A brutal, obsessive film. The ending is so cute.

Until a few years later, when Bergman would deliver his near unwatchable masterpiece "Cries and Whispers", Blind Beast could easily stand as the most nauseating kammerspiel ever. The multi-layered and, frankly, quite pretentious story is still effective in exploiting phobias and revelling in twisted and obscure fetishes. A delight.

I want more.

Astoundingly twisted!