How is a man writing & directing vile, explicit exploitation of women in ANY way feminist?
I really, really, really wanted to like this movie. The styling was gorgeous, the primary colors and the moving lighting were eye-catching, and the fourth-wall break at the midpoint was completely unexpected to me. But as a woman who has actually been sexually traumatized, this did not sit right with me.
I understand that Sono was trying to use cinematic surrealism as a tool to convey existentialist themes; he attempts to use extremely vivid depictions of rape, degradation & sexual exploitation as a sort of counter-statement to how these issues tend to be shoved under the rug and delegitimized by patriarchal society. What he doesn't realize (or perhaps he simply doesn't care) is that this film instead does exactly what real porn does; it desensitizes the viewer to violence against women by framing the physical and psychological suffering of women as a superficial performance, with no true message. Sexuality is a performance, freedom is a lie, everything a woman could possibly do feeds into the male gaze— and then what? I could have gathered all of this from a Fast & Furious movie. Sure, Sono somewhat "addresses" that his films are shot through the lense of the male gaze via the midway 4th wall break, but is admitting to a sin enough to absolve you of it?
Existentialist horror is meant to crawl beneath your skin slowly, like perpetually growing parasites. Allegories are meant to be subtle, to imply a deeper meaning through a story that could also hold merit without it. They are not meant to scream in your face in neon colors, with obnoxious protagonists and no storyline other than "she was abused again and again and again". I wish I could say the juxtaposition of dark social commentary vs. bright colors and screaming worked well, but it just didn't.
Anyone who says this film is "empowering" has a girlbossified grasp on what liberation means; at no point in this film is Kyoto her own person, acting on her own volition— all her actions, specifically the sexual ones, are a way for her to gain either male validation with the all male film crew an obvious symbol for her father, or to gain social acceptance, as in when she kept reiterating that she wanted to be a "whore".
Sure, there are some good lines in this. "I wish I was a man so I could kill them all", or "You're either a virgin or a whore". But that doesn't change the fact that all this movie is is trauma porn made by a man who is clearly aware of, yet entirely unmoved by the fact that the media he produces feeds right into straight men's favorite sexual perversion: female suffering.
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