Takashi Miike's films often go from one bizarre shift in tone to another, sometimes within one film and sometimes inside of a series. This is the case in both something like the Black Society Trilogy where the horrifying sleaze in Shinjuku Triad Society switches to the restrained and dour melancholy of Rainy Dog as well as the the classic bait and switch reveal in stand-alone nightmare Audition. The ease at which things move from sickening to sickly sweet is integral in his body of work, which remains startlingly diverse today. However when the boundaries of genre and tone are less obvious things become rather more unsettling. Enter Visitor Q.
This uneasy mixture of story types has certainly never been more evident than here, in his contribution to a direct-to-video project intended to show the benefits of shooting on ultra low budget formats. Where else could he get away with some of the events that unfold here? Part domestic drama, part horror, part surreal urban fantasy, this is one of the most difficult to digest stories he's ever produced. Not only because of certain scenes but because it's never clear how much is supposed to be a black comedy and how much is genuinely a satire of repressed personalities and dysfunctional family life. It's pretty fascinating but often rather stomach churning.
The Yamazaki household has a lot of problems. The daughter has run away from home and has become a prostitute, the son is bullied and violently beats his mother as a result, and in turn she also sells her body to fund a drug addiction. The father Kiyoshi (Kenichi Endo) works as a TV documentary reporter, but is struggling after recently being the victim of a sexual assault which was recorded and even broadcast. This has damaged his career - and apparently his mind - as he is seen paying for his daughter's services and using his son's troubled school life as a basis for his next big "real life" news feature...
However things are about to get a lot weird as a stranger appears in town, and after apparently hitting Koyoshi over the head with a rock (twice) he's invited to stay with him for reasons that are unclear. Observing the issues that are ongoing he begins to put in motion changes that will bring the family back together. Just not by any kind of run of the mill methods. What follows is a tale of sexual reawakening, murder, and necrophilia. Of course. You thought the milk scenes in Gozu were bizarre? Well you're in for something else here.
Eventually it becomes obvious that some of this is not to be taken seriously at all, though it takes a long time to become clear after a lot of weird awkward sequences. In one instance Kiyoshi while filming his family struggles, realises that the dinner his wife prepared is just as amazing has the fireworks that are destroying his house as bullies from his son's school arrive. Meanwhile he admits that he has no idea who the man staying with them is, but carries on filming anyway. In a way this is both simultaneously the most grotesque and the funniest film Miike has ever made, so of course it's not going to be for everyone. But if you do have a taste for extreme cinema and have come across any of his other work in the past, this might serve as logical conclusion to your viewings.
3/5
