I
kind of run hot-to-cold on Takashi Miike’s work. For every masterpiece like Audition there’s more
than a few wildly uneven Dead or Alives. That said, the motto of The Video Vacuum has
always been quantity over quality, and since few directors embody this
philosophy like Miike, I always look forward to his films. In 2001, he made no less than seven features
including the badass Ichi the Killer. It
was in that year he made this jaw-dropper of a flick.
The
film kicks off with some of the best stop-motion animation I’ve seen in recent
memory. A little creepy Cupid-looking
guy rips out a girl’s uvula before taking off on an unexpected series of
misadventures. The focus then switches
to a family of oddballs who have turned their home into an inn. Trouble is, no one stays there anymore which
is causing friction between the family. When
their first guest in forever commits suicide, the family conspires to hide the
body in fear publicity would further damage business. More customers wind up at the hotel and suffer
from similarly quirky deaths, leading to more cover-ups.
Oh, and did I mention it’s a musical???
Personally,
I kind of wish there had been more stop-motion animation sequences. The weirdo Cupid dude is genuinely cool, but
he disappears after the first scene, which is disappointing. The other stop-motion animated scenes that
are sprinkled throughout are charming, although they lack the unbridled glee of
the opening.
The
core of the story is sound though, and the humor is appropriately pitch black. The songs are surprisingly amusing too, which
helps to make it a winner. Did it really
need to be nearly two hours long?
Absolutely not. Still, there are
plenty of WTF moments to be had to ensure lovers of out-there cinema will find
happiness from the Katakuris.
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