Friday, March 25, 2011

Uzumaki

I'm going to be honest, I thought this movie was incredibly strange and poorly acted. My first reaction was "WTF?" After our discussion in class, I felt better knowing that the director most likely meant for certain parts to be humorous - because they absolutely were ridiculous. I did find it interesting how moments of extreme unease and funny moments were juxtaposed. For instance, loud circus-like music plays just before we see a boy fall from the spiral staircase, which cracks his skull and kills him. Just after this moment there is the bathroom scene, with the odd girl clique that emerges from the stalls. The audience is taken from quirky to horrific moments in the blink of an eye. In my opinion, this reminded me of Alice in Wonderland or the newer version of Willy Wonka - mainly, when we see the human snails and large, animated curling hair. This made the entire move super unbelievable and completely non-frightening. I'm beginning to think the director just wanted to take peoples' minds for a trip. He certainly did that.

2 comments:

  1. I think as an American viewing a Japanese horror film, we have to take into account that this film was written with a different culture in mind. As Dr. Miller said, at times the film was trying to capture the feeling of anime and this was obviously meant to act as a comic relief for the audience. Having seen other Japanese films this semester, it is clear that Japan's entertainment industry is very comfortable being overly melodramatic, so perhaps Uzumaki appeals more in the Japanese forum. Personally, knowing that the directors were aiming for a cartoonish vibe makes me appreciate the movie even more because of how successfully ridiculous the film was.

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  2. I think that is an interesting way of looking at how the movie was shot and the comparisons of humor and horror, to look at it through the lense of this is a live action anime film. It takes all the exaggerated features of the anime films the violence, the close ups, the fantastic, the surprising, and the humor. All these devices are important for bringing printed stories to life in anime comics. It is interesting to see these devices translated to a live action and probably some of directors own humor to see how ridiculous some of these devices look outside of the context of a comic book or animated cartoon. In american film the closest comparisons I can think of are sin city, kill bill, and the watchmen. Although these movies did use some devices, especially the violence, they did not have the ridiculousness that an almost direct adaptation of animated story would have, as is the case in Uzamaki.

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