BLIND BEAST - A JAPANESE FILM WITH CULTURAL TABOOS

 

BLIND  BEAST  -    A  JAPANESE  FILM  WITH  CULTURAL  TABOOS
 

                       

A blind sculptor kidnaps an artist’s model and imprisons her in his warehouse studio – a shadow-land of perverse monuments to the female form. Here, a deranged passion play of sensual and sexual obsession is acted out in a world where sight is replaced by touch.



With the help of his own mother (Noriko Sengoku), sightless sculptor Michio (Eiji Funakoshi) abducts gorgeous model Aki (Mako Midori) and brings her back to his lair -- a warehouse populated by demented art objects that mimic female bodies. There, he forces the young beauty to endure a series of sadomasochistic mind games. But, as the weeks wear on, Aki becomes deeply immersed in the erotic torment she's put through, and she and Michio descend into animalistic depths of pleasure and pain.

Most of the reviewers, e.g., IMDb, have given 7/10, and User Reviews 9/10, for this movie that breaks transgressive norms.


The movie describes actions, art, or behaviors that challenge conventional boundaries and definitions of acceptability.

Transgressive describes actions, behaviors, or art forms that violate, challenge, or go beyond accepted social, moral, or legal boundaries.

An arthouse pinku that tells a semi-surreal tale of obsession and madness. Blind Beast shares similarities with The Laughing Woman, but it amps up the depravity significantly (in true Japanese genre cinema fashion). The ending is really the stuff of nightmares and the only way this kinky torture drama could have concluded.



Blind Beast (Mōjū), or Moju the Blind Beast, is a 1969 Japanese erotic horror film directed by Yasuzo Masumura. Produced by Kazumasa Nakano for Daiei Film. It is based on a novel by Edogawa Rampo.




SYNOPSIS:

Aki Shima (Mako Midori), a fashion model known for her provocative, often S&M-themed photographs, attends a gallery exhibition of her work. She witnesses a blind sculptor, Michio Sofu (Eiji Funakoshi), touching a statue of her nude form with unsettling intensity. Aki feels as if his touch is physically on her own body, and leaves, feeling uncomfortable. Aki is a model for the photographer Yamana, who specializes in modish scenes of bondage and extreme nudity. She feels as if the sculptor is molesting her actual body by a kind of sympathetic magic, and flees. Sometime later, exhausted after an intense session with the photographer, Aki hires a masseur to visit her apartment. It is the same blind man, and he fondles her body with the same inappropriate intensity. When she objects, he drugs her and, with the help of his mother (Noriko Sengoku), abducts her. Michio takes Aki to the studio he has fashioned from a massive, abandoned warehouse far outside the city.


Aki awakens in Michio's surreal, custom-built "temple of erotic touch." The walls, floor, and ceiling are covered with large, disproportionate sculptures of female body parts. When she comes to, Aki finds herself in an artist’s studio. The walls are covered in outsize sculptures of body parts – huge, staring eyes; ears, lips, breasts – the floor filled with massive statues of reclining female nudes. After several abortive attempts to escape, Aki begins a self-destructive affair with the sculptor. The centerpiece is a pair of monumental, upholstered nude female figures that Michio uses for his tactile experiments. Michio explains that he was born blind and "sees" the world entirely through touch and sensory memory. He intends to use Aki as his muse to create a new, transcendent form of "sensory art."


Initially, Aki refuses and attempts to escape. Michio forces her to pose so he can sculpt her, studying her body through touch. Their relationship quickly becomes a complex psychological power struggle between captor and captive. Aki attempts to gain control through seduction, taking advantage of Michio's profound inexperience and vulnerability, which stems from his reliance on his mother.


Aki's ploy succeeds, shifting Michio's focus from sculpting her likeness to obsessing over her living body. A jealous Shino tries to secretly let Aki leave, but they are discovered by Michio, leading to a violent confrontation between the three in which Shino is accidentally killed. As Michio mourns over her body, Aki attempts to escape, but Michio recaptures her and angrily berates her for manipulating him. To prove that he is not a "mama's boy" as Aki had called him, he rapes her. Several days later, Michio and Aki bury Shino beneath the studio floor.



Michio finishes his sculpture, and Aki gradually begins to develop genuine affection for him. Isolated from the outside world and deprived of natural light, Aki begins to lose her sight and finally understands the ecstasy Michio experiences through his acute sense of touch. Increasingly hungry for sensation, they engage in more violent acts, eventually weakening their bodies to the brink of death. With the last of her energy, Aki begs Michio to sever all her limbs. Michio complies, dismembering Aki before fatally stabbing himself. In a final voice-over, Aki declares that those who become obsessed with the world of touch can only expect to meet a gruesome end.

The performances are intense and committed, with Eiji Funakoshi bringing a palpable sense of desperation and hunger to the role of Michio. His portrayal of a man driven by his artistic vision to the point of madness is both repulsive and oddly sympathetic. Mako Midori's Aki undergoes a disturbing transformation from terrified victim to willing participant in her own degradation, a journey that Midori handles with nuance and conviction.


One of the most memorable scenes occurs when Michio first explores Aki's body with his hands, treating her like a living sculpture. The camera lingers on the expressions of both characters, creating a tense and uncomfortable atmosphere that sets the tone for the rest of the film. This scene encapsulates the movie's themes of objectification, artistic passion, and the blurring of boundaries between creator and creation.

Masumura has often been accused of eclecticism – he made too many diverse types of films in too many styles to forge the ‘signature’ of the auteur. But it is the thematic, stylistic, and imagistic links that Masumura makes across different films that make their unity so distinctive – and disturbing.

It is in its depiction of the art world that Blind Beast proves distinctive. Rampo’s book depends for its context on the emergence in 1920s Japan of international modern movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism – all in different ways engaged in ‘deforming’ the body and space, and predictably often shocking those used to traditional Japanese art. Masumura’s visualization of Michio’s studio follows Rampo closely, yet also convincingly belongs to the late 1960s – doubtless because much of the art of the 1960s, from Pop and Conceptual Art to installation and performance, revisited ideas first explored in the 1920s.

Aki is one of many Masumura heroines who must problematically undergo physical ordeals (abduction, incarceration, assault) to achieve inner strength. In Blind Beast, Aki exchanges conventional sight for insight. She begins the film by running away from what she sees, running from her sensual power to conflate sight and feeling. Her imprisonment opens with a black screen as she tries to adapt to Michio’s unlit studio. The film approaches its climax as her eyes atrophy, but she finds the fulfillment she never did as a ‘free’, sighted, alienated, modern woman. By the end, Aki is as much the ‘blind beast’ of the title as Michio, her ecstatic carcass butchered by the sculptor just as her image was fragmented by the photographer Yamana in the film’s opening sequence. As with all Masumura’s masterpieces, Blind Beast presents an unsettling vision that goes beyond mere vision.



User Review:


BLIND BEAST is a unique film in that it portrays some "controversial" (for 1969...) material in a straight-faced and serious manner. There is some nudity, but it's "light", and there is almost no blood - yet the ending is pretty violent. An interesting and deep film that will probably appeal to Japanese-pinky fans or others who dig 60's/70's-era Japanese films... 8.5/10...


"Blind Beast" remains a powerful and thought-provoking work that raises intriguing questions about the nature of art, desire, and the human psyche.



The movie has a run time of 1 hour and 24 minutes.



Overall, Blind Beast is a bizarre oddity that verges on brilliance. Well worth seeing!

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