TOMIE: BEGINNING

Irritating and mystifying audiences alike when it first hit screens, Tomie was perhaps the 'original' post-modern supernatural nightmare of adolescent throw-away culture, obsession, and destructive desire. Suggesting far more than its twisting plot ever revealed, taunting in both its convoluted story line and fragmented narrative structure, Tomie's surrealist attitude towards reality/fantasy and the nature of both lust and karmic revenge was mirrored -- and further emphasized -- by the very abrupt method of its telling. A regenerative being who feeds off the hatred, lust, and fear of its victims, Tomie, the archetypal femme fatal, is also the essential 'victim,' merging the combined helplessness and seductive danger of both these types into one confusing yet fascinating symbol. Feeding off the violence of others, both victim and victimizer, Tomie's most fascinating aspect is her ability to represent in the complex cycle of her death and re-creation the seemingly endless torment and consequences of violence itself. Once began, violence, the lies we tell, and our crass desires soon develop an energy independent of ourselves, reproducing themselves through necessity. Corruption births corruption, just as Tomie, once murdered (in part seducing people into the act), is re-birthed and multiplied in a never-ending cycle of corruption and madness.

Proving far more successful than its creators could have thought, Tomie returned in five more incarnations, with different directors lending their personal vision and temperaments to the titular title character's charms. Uneven in quality, ranging from fascinating to inept, the longevity of the series seems to be mimicking the self-birthing power of Tomie herself. Three years after the fifth entry of the series, the director of the 1999 original returns to weave a new nightmare of 'beauty' bathed in blood. While opinions of director Oikawa Ataru's success is heavily debated, with a number of critics believing it to be among the weakest thematically, he did manage to create (with author Ito Junji) a philosophically provocative story peopled with a character whose very ambiguities lent her an undeniable fascination. In short, Tomie herself is the reason to make and watch these films, as her own warped mixture of beauty and terror, innocence and decadence, is the symbol that allows each director to visit such themes as warped titillation, mental torture, culpability, and the asexual nature of evil. In Tomie: Beginning, Oikawa goes still further, digging past the enticing spectacle of Tomie herself for a deeper, more comprehensive examination of evil. While other films have mined similar territory, Atura brings more sympathy to his characters, and a greater level of maturity to an undeniably absurdist narrative.

A recent graduate from a high school which has proved the latest nest for Tomie to populate, Matsubara relates this typically zig-zag story, which we see unfolding from her surprisingly mature point-of-view. As Reiko and her friend Yamamoto meet in the shambles of what was once there school, we learn that their teacher has went insane, several of their peers have killed themselves, and the remainder have met violent deaths. Sitting in the ruined aftermath of their homeroom, these battered survivors of supernatural wrath relate the chaotic manifestation that brought their lives to this desperate avenue. Like an untameable presence -- a hurricane or other natural disaster -- Kawagami Tomie brings discord, confused eroticism, and hatred to her new surroundings. Or does she simply highlight the negativity and jealousy already apparent in the minds and hearts of those she tortures? This is one of the thematic elements the director milks to his advantage, and one of the more disquieting aspects of the story. Transferring to a new school, Tomie's amoral nature and strange beauty awaken the evil in classmates, who, in fits of rage, cut off her ear. When it regenerates, they go mad and kill her, chopping her into several parts. Of course Tomie is waiting in school for them the next day. Soon, using her sexual appeal -- and fear -- to control the boys, she wreaks revenge on her female oppressors.

While not exactly original in his approach, director Ataru's direction is assured, and his camera active. Lending the hysterical splatter theatrics further psychological depth and aesthetic interest by warped angles and subjective compositions, he further emphasizes the chaos that Tomie represents, returning each time she is murdered to drag her attackers deeper into madness. Ataru's sense of color captures the physical look of character's moods, with blacks representing terror and blue highlighting Tomie's allure. More importantly, by telling the story through a female perspective, he invites a unified perspective. . Depicting with lyricism and atmosphere the nightmarish dominance that Tomie wields over her victims, this film conveys the process of victims finding first peace, then even greater madness through the paradoxically cleansing yet damning process of dismembering the demonic entity. Most impressive is the director's attempt to suggest (with enough room for ambiguity) the inherent flow of humanity, suggesting that Tomie is more of a tempter than an outright monster. For if Tomie is a destructive force, men's desire for her, and women's instinctive hatred of her, release her destructive force. They invite their destruction.

A modern myth lending sex and violence to the narcissism of Greek folklore, Tomie: Beginning is an innovative if structurally uneven addition to an equally ambitious series. Interweaving gore with thematic depth, psychology with outright shock, the film breaks notions of pre-conceived reality and expectation with the same fetishism with which body parts are severed. Sneaking a possibly scientific explanation for Tomie's power into a premise that has always felt supernatural, and making the characters more believable than several of the past chapters, this film unearths a relationship between Tomie's rejuvenating blood and, on a more metaphorical level, the group lust that leads to the birth of violence. Clearly valuing the inexplicable, Tomie: Beginning defies conventional logic and makes sense not in a literal level but with the surrealism of dream.

Tokyo Shock, an arm of Media Blasters, continues to release worthwhile, exciting Asian horror cinema from various corners of the world. Tomie: Beginning is another example of a worthwhile and thematically ambiguous film being treated with the respect of a Hollywood blockbuster. Presenting the film in anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen, the picture quality is wonderful, with colors fresh and moody. No apparent lines, scratches, or blurring hampers viewing pleasure. Audio in Dolby Digital is just as proficient. Extras, wile not as generous as one has come to expect from the company that released wonderful editions of Witchboard and One Missed Call (2), are serviceable. These include the trailer, and the Premiere Featurette, which is a standard bit of Asian PR.

Review by William P. Simmons