A LIVING HELL

Unrepentant in its willingness to peel back the polite socially conservative skin of cultural taboo with fingers (and blades) dipped as much in subversively thoughtful questions of humanity as they are in blood, Asian cinema has long been infamous for daring to descend where others fear to tread. Celebrating perverse sexuality, pain, and the art of viscera in a glorified, undeniably excessive manner perhaps even more graphic and brutally honest than the heyday of Italian horror cinema (1970's-80's), Asian horror in its more extreme splatter and psychological incarnations (as opposed to its suggestive supernatural counterparts) is a rough, rowdy, unrepentant punch in the guts, a revelation to viewers used to the oh-so- tired banality of modern remakes and fearless freak-fests churned out by studios whose closest experience with fear is the threat of losing their jobs.

A Living Hell, following in the tradition of such fear-fests as Evil Dead Trap, owes as much in look, feeling, and design to American GrindHouse cinema as it does to its own culture's refusal to blink from the terror of violence. Treating the body as little better than meat, this descent into depravity goes too far and too deep, lovingly peeling back the bleeding flesh of restraint to finger the vulnerable meat beneath. Daring all, the filmmakers joyfully celebrate excessive imagery, grue, and social taboos. This story also indulges in such taboo nightmares as incest, sado-masochism, and torture. Whereas other films of this ilk would be satisfied to simply repulse, horrify, and titillate audiences with brazenly authentic looking viscera, wallowing happily over-the-top carnality, this flick also emphasizes the importance of plot. With its introspective sub-text and careful handling of atmosphere, the filmmakers dissect themes of identity, blame, and generational warfare that are just as disturbing than exquisitely filmed moments of cringe-inducing grand guignol.

In a story as complex as its characters are emotionally layered, Yasu (Hirohito Honda), a young man trapped in a wheelchair, is an outsider within his own family, neither seeking nor getting understanding from what at first glance appears to be a traditional Eastern family structure. Lamenting the loss of his mother, he suffers in an emotional bubble surrounded by a self-centered father, brother and sister -- all of whom appear to doubt his sanity. This perception only increases when he begins to fear exposes fear a mysterious old woman named Chiyo and Yuki, her young companion, when they come to live with Yasu's family. Impressively evil, these two women resonate with refined malignancy, both seductive and terrifying in their inhumanity. Their calculating approach to torture, and ignorance of human feeling, are as disturbing as the violence itself. That no one believes Yasu's suffering only makes his character more sympathetic and darkly humorous. Truly a living hell, his life promises to be short-lived and painful as even his sister disbelieves him and he finds himself as emotionally alone as he is physically helpless. A less satisfying if intriguing sub-plot of two cops investigating mysterious murders from the beginning of the film allows the various threads of this fear feature to come together in a painful, maddening end.

Directed with energy and enthusiasm, this film evokes physical shocks and emotional jolts with equal fervor, the emotional terror and sense of unease lasting long after the ambiguous conclusion. Residing in its own individualistic nightmarish territory, the emotional tone flip-flops successfully between humor and horror, shock and sadistic eroticism. Besides the obvious physical fear and vulnerability that Yasu suffers as the hands of the demented women, there is a strange, rather perverse alteration in the family dynamic occurring in the movie that is both repulsive and emotionally painful to witness. These emotional aspects are only surpassed by the mystery and oddly attractive terror of the elderly and younger women themselves, who are almost ghost-like/demonic in their simplistic, almost gentle style of hardcore brutality. Slapping expectation in the face, refusing banality, and spreading apart taboo subjects like two grimy hands forcing open battered thighs, Living Hell is an emotionally scathing, psychologically intense attack against the senses. It's atmosphere owes as much to the ethics (or lack thereof) of the 70's as to the recent Asian craze, feeling oddly similar in its grimness to Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, while remaining both more original and humorous. Terrorizing and titillating, this vivisection of gender politics, coming of age, and search for self is a problem-child of twisted love, abuse and alienation .

Ugly precisely because the events, people, and philosophical areas it studies are bleak and brutal, the movie asks for no friends, refusing to play by the politely sanitized rules of a ruling class or mainstream audience status quo. Low on dialogue and high on style, the most significant moments are captured in silence with primal impulses and revelations captured by the staring camera and character's facial expressions/body language. While the plot is uneven, becoming more convoluted as the madness and physical cruelty intensifies, an emphasis on effect rather than logic uses this effect of disorientation to better achieve its own ambition of madness.

This mean-spirited stew of sordidness and sadism is presented in impressive widescreen (1.85.1 non anamorphic), with a clear if sometimes flat picture, whose colors are primarily strong. Audio is in Dolby Digital 2.0 Japanese with optional English subs. Extras, as is the case with most Subversive releases, is where the disk shines, featuring Shugo Fujii in an audio commentary in fragmented but basic English, and, most impressive, FOUR of Fujii's short films. The first three -- Blackhole, Seesaw Game, Grief, & Dead Money -- are in black and white without dialogue, but in their expressionistic style hint of the themes and direction that lends Living Hell its suicidal effect. Dead Money, the fourth, is colorized, and while not as experimental as the earlier efforts, display a maturity of approach to outre material. All this is followed with deleted scenes, trailers, storyboards, and a bio of Fujii.

As honest and emotional as it is exploitative, A Living Hell is most remarkable for the refusal of its director to preach. He watches the action unfold with the innocence of a child, the glee of a sadist, and the impassivity of a passerby. It's his purpose to show, the probe, to watch, not to force values like bitter pills down your throat. Precisely because he doesn't sermonize, the movie is lent a disturbing atmosphere of both realism and erotic violence, repulsive and darkly attractive at the same time. Surreal in execution and as anti-politically correct as one can get, this is a poignant examination of people on the fringes of society, strangers to themselves and others, and the twisted, largely subjective process of love, hate, and identity. While the end is a bit of a letdown, somewhere between cliché and overly ambiguous, its refusal to tie everything together itself mirrors the general tone of anarchy.

Review by William P Simmons