Saturday, October 15, 2011

"Bijitâ Q" (2001)

I know it seems like I say this all the time when I look at a Takasi Miike movie, but I'll say it again. This might have been the most bizarre movie I've ever seen. And know I know for a fact that weirder doesn't always mean it is better. Take in case "Bijitâ Q" (Visitor Q in english), I sort of had high hopes for this movie, after really liking Miike's other movies "Audition" and "Itchi The Killer". Now I won't go to the point to say that I hated this movie, I just didn't like it. More after the jump.


The movie centralizes around one particular family, who makes the Addams family look normal by comparison. The son gets bullied at school and lashes out on his mom, both physically and vocally. The daughter is a prostitute, and at one point charges her dad to sleep with her. The mom is addicted to heroin, she prostitutes to support her habit. And lastly the dad is a failed news reporter who tries to make one last documentary about his son getting bullied and beat up to save his career. But than a mysterious man walks into their life, Visitor Q. He enters their lives by knocking the dad's head with a rock, they for some reason becomes friends and he welcomes Visitor Q in his life. Visitor Q does nothing more than glue the family back into a peaceful, functional family.

If you still don't think this movie is out of the ordinary, let me share you some of the things I saw: necrophilia, incest, prostitution, rape, milking fetishes, homicide and bullying. Unlike the other Miike's films, there isn't a lot of violence, but like his other films, the sexual perversion is beyond anything sane. This was the first movie this year I felt uncomfortable watching, it is awkward and disturbing. It's hard to describe, and hard to explain it because even after watching the movie, I still don't want to believe I saw something like this.

The one and only Visitor Q.
Putting aside the fact this movie deals with almost every taboo matter, the next awkward part of the movie is the pacing. In the beginning the movie is broken down into questions. "Would you ever do your dad?", "Would you ever hit your mom?", etc. Even though this gives you a good overview of the family member's flaws, I never got an answer how Visitor Q does his magic. And because the movie switches between the family members so easily, there isn't really a good reason why. All until the end when everything is explained, but not in the most coherent way. And because the move takes so long to get to the conclusion, I was bored, yes bored at this freak show of a movie, far before the end.

It's weird to say, but this film had an art house style to it. Where the story takes a step back for the more visual symbolisms and serious undertone to it. Where some people would find this movie to be thoroughly enjoyable, I found it boring and hard to watch. I couldn't recommend this to anyone, unless they were into watching those freaky videos online for an hour and a half. I guess that is the best way to put this, watching "Bijitâ Q" is like watching those freak video clips (BME pain olympics, 2girs1cup, cake fart, etc) straight for a couple hours.

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