The most valuable player in this movie? The person in charge of the English subtitles.
People are dying. Violent, cruel deaths. Some by accident, some by their own hand, and the most unfortunate among them are being brutally murdered by the people they love most. Or by complete strangers. Oh, and some just cough up blood and die. Ten people. Fifty. Thousands. It’s an epidemic of unexplained deaths, and the police can only find two connections between the victims. They’ve all received some sort of psychiatric help, and they’ve all dreamed about the same man in the hours, days, weeks before they died. Well, let’s forget about the psychiatric angle, but the guy with the unibrow? Yeah, he’s the constant. Haunting your dreams as you hide in your bed or stand in your kitchen peeling carrots. Yeah, that man. This man.
Art is subjective, and there is no truer statement about movies than that. Anything any of us say about movies we love or movies we loathe is simply an opinion. Your favorite movie of all time is hated by someone else, and that movie you just raved about is beloved by someone else. It’s one of the many beautiful things about art, about movies, and talking about those opinions, both shared and opposing, can often lead someone to discover an appreciation they didn’t initially feel. There’s a real joy that comes from that experience, from opening someone’s eyes to why you love a movie they simply don’t agree with, and from helping them appreciate what they see as a “bad” movie as something good, entertaining, thought-provoking, and/or ultimately unforgettable.
I won’t be able to do that for you when it comes to the new Japanese horror/thriller. This man. I want to. Believe me, I really want you to see this movie and love it as much as I do. I want to convince you that everything from its flat performances and even flatter cinematography, to its nonsensical narrative and the editing decisions that make every scene last three minutes longer than it should, is intentional, purposeful, and worthy of your praise. I want to convince you, excite you, encourage you to seek out this accidental masterpiece. This is my Plan 9 from outer space (1959), The room (2003), and Birdemic: Shock and terror (2010). I don’t share the idea that a film can be “so bad it’s good”, but This manA film that seems incompetent on almost every level, it is also among the most purely entertaining and fun films of the year.
Writer/Director Tomojiro Amano He probably intended his latest film to be a serious horror-thriller. I say probably because I have a sneaking suspicion, despite everyone involved playing the film in a serious manner, that it’s actually a secret comedy. I say secret because no one else seems to be in the know, from the stolid cast to the cinematographer who lights every scene with the same ceiling fan. While the film’s themes half-heartedly explore our collective subconscious and the ineffectiveness of authority, the ugly underlying truth it raises is an almost comical observation that we are the most selfish and self-centered species on the planet.
Thousands of people are dying (the government has even distributed suicide pills so people can die peacefully instead of cutting their skin or whatever) and we find out that this man’s “rampage” from the spirit world can be stopped if just one person sacrifices themselves and goes down to hell with him. Just one. But no one takes the bait and the body count rises into the tens of thousands. A young couple discovers that a quick three-minute chant can lift a stranger’s curse, and they immediately say “do it!”, only to realize too late that this man’s unibrow was a monkey’s paw in disguise. Two bickering shamans who can’t agree on who’s the strongest reveal that they could have stopped this man by simply putting those differences aside and sharing another quick chant, but they’ll laugh about it later. It turns out that this man, the guy who raises his single eyebrow like a caterpillar to point out every emotion, is just pointing out the truth we all already know. We’re useless!
That, or my second theory is that the person in charge of creating the English subtitles went crazy. He threw the script aside, maybe didn’t even know Japanese to begin with, and simply wrote some of the funniest, most comically deadpan dialogue to hit the screen since Mel Brooks’ double whammy in 1974. Saddles on fire and Young FrankensteinJust to be clear, This man It’s not any of those movies. There are no obvious jokes here, no one-liners or sight gags meant to elicit big laughs and happy smiles, and no comedic talent performers who generate laughs by their mere presence. There is no comedy in This man.
Unless there is?
IThe 28th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival It will take place from July 18 to August 4 in the beautiful city of Montreal, Quebec. Follow our coverage here.
Related topics: Fantastic Film Festival, Horror
