Man Is Foolishly Oblivious To Danger: Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell (1968)

I have seen a lot of Japanese films in my day.  Indeed, before I decided to focus primarily on South Korean cinema I considered throwing my hat into the ring of Japanese film scholarship, which has come quite a long way since the labor intensive work of Donald Richie and the many off shoots that followed.  While I certainly still incorporate Japanese cinema into my research when possible, it has now become more a labor of love to engage with the country's cinema in all its glorious forms whether samurai or kaiju related, even stepping into the lush and evocative world of Kurosawa on occasion.  I say all this with reference to one of my particularly adored genres within Japanese cinema, the shoe string budget horror films that were released throughout the sixties and well into the late seventies, including the wonderfully wacky House and the schlock heavy, but well-regarded Matango.  Indeed, I am, as such, always on the look out for a new film in this bizarre cannon to consume, realizing that in the space of these non-traditional, low-budget films exist some of the most pointed and scathing critiques of the many facets of Japanese society and the manner with which it relates to a larger global context.  The delightfully eerie Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is certainly a case of this, right down to its use of a white European (perhaps American?) character and her lost Vietnam soldier as an extension of larger post-colonial woes in a country that was then still finding its footing on a global scale.  At times some of the special effects in the film could give the worst of the b-movie nonsense a run for its money, but given the clear admiration and care for the filmic out come of his product, director Hajime Sato manages to make a shoe-string budget into something spectacular, through heavy use of red tones, a healthy does of fake blood and enough hand drawn animation to make even the most stern of film viewers smile in disbelief.  Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell will never exist in a world of perfect cinematic output, but it is also far from being incurably bad, in fact, it is precisely in its willingness to not take itself seriously that the very critiques and condemnations it spouts become almost prophetic, even if only in a satirical sense.

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell begins with a group of individuals flying on an airplane from Tokyo to  Osaka, wherein the flight stewardess Kuzumi Asakura (Tomomi Sato) attempts to layout a general flight plan only to be repeatedly interrupted by birds killing themselves by flying directly into the plane. Paired with a disturbingly red sky the other members of the crew and the passengers begin to grow anxious of their safety on the plane.  When information suggests that their might be a man on board with a bomb, the captains order an immediate search of all the persons present, including the somewhat befuddled Neal (Kathy Horan) an American widow, as well as a prestigious senator named Mano (Eizo Kitamura).  When a sudden light floats above the ship, the captains lose control of the plane's computers and the aircraft spirals downward, landing damaged on a desert like area, assumedly between the two cities.  It is at this point that the crew becomes suspicious of a particular man on the ship known only as The Hijacker (Hideo Ko), whose possession of a rifle makes him a prime suspect for a political assassination that happened prior to the flight.  Noting the inherent survival nature of the situation, a psychiatrist in the group named Momotake (Kazuo Kato) suggests that the group be incredibly aware of each action they commit as the wrong phrase or move could send the entire group into a frenzy, a warning that proves futile when it is revealed that not only is The Hijacker dangerous on purely an assassin level, but that he is indeed a creature that consists entirely in blob form, using the human body as a vessel to transport itself and destroy the other members on the plane in a manner quite similar to a vampire.  Nonetheless, figures like Mano in a foolish quest to quench their thirst drink large amounts of whisky, only worsening his suffering, while Neal, already reeling from the trauma of her loss, begins to act in bouts of hysteria bemoaning the war in Vietnam and the general downfall of humanity.  Matters come to their worst point when it is revealed that the aliens, who refer to themselves as Gokemidoro, show that they are capable of transferring between bodies at a quick rate, consuming the life force of all those they encounter.  The closing shots depict two remaining survivors traveling about the streets of Japan in a quest for survivors, only to be told by the spectral voice of a Gokemidoro that no human will be spared, as the camera then pans out to show the true destruction wrought not only on Japan, but the entire world.

While a well-argued case for this not really being a horror movie, but more so a science fiction thriller could be made, I would like to instead say that the survival aspects of the work are precisely what make it fall within the framework of a horror movie, as deemed so by Criterion who released it as part of their stellar and repeatedly rewarding Eclipse box set When Horror Came to Shochiku.  In fact, the psychiatrists speech during the film notes that in times of survival one can see humanity turn to its most inhumane, tapping into base animal instincts and maliciously seeking their own survival over that of others.  The narrative in Goke certainly evokes this sort of sensibility, but manages to take it even a step further, using this moment of survival to allow characters to challenge deeply entrenched notions of oppression, privilege and accessibility.  This is absolutely the case when Tokiyasue (Nobuo Koneko) exploits the well-being of Mano by offering him the initial drink of whisky, thus affording his increasing suffering and drunkenness as a point to show the horrors and injustices he has condoned while in office.  Similarly, there are multiple through lines between the figure of Neal's dead husband and his oppressive behavior both in regards to how he navigates as a continued colonial identity in Japan, while also proving quite hazardous to Neal who appears to be at a complete lack without the privilege attached to a white male in society.  Of course, the horror does not extend at these oppression, one can certainly look closer and note the manners with which Japanese women become a doubly othered figure in the narrative, neither possessing the whiteness or the maleness to be taken completely seriously, despite, at times being the most rational in a situation.  As such, Goke, in its low-budget ways becomes a wonderful look at the spectrum of intersectionality and the ways this oppression occurs even in the face of a near fatal accident, suggesting that as long as oppressors exist in the framework of a society, hegemony will exist and perhaps that is where a real horror lies, if not in this realization the purposeful juxtaposition of the Gokemidoro with the violence occurring in reality (Vietnam, political assassinations and riots) certainly drives the point deeply in a viewers psyche.

Key Scene:  The airplane crash!

This particular film is part of an Eclipse series that is full of great Japanese horror films, in which this piece of brilliance is not even its best offering.

I Just Had The Clearest Thought: The Grey (2012)

While I admitted to Django Unchained being the last film I am likely to see in theaters before the new year, that does not mean I am by any means finished trying to catch all the films from last year, as I made the mistake of creating a top ten list far to early and realizing that either half the movies I thought I liked really were not that great, or that the considerable amount of films I failed to see, truly were quite good and knocked many out of the list, most notably Take Shelter which moved all the way to the top of my list of favorite films of 2011.  I intend to may a concerted effort to watch all of the major contenders for best film before the Oscar's and then provide a list of what I find to be the best films.  I figure this provides me an opportunity to see many of the films as they still circulate in theaters as well as catch the rest when they eventually come to cheap theaters or bluray, namely some of the blockbusters that I just did not care to see with a large group.  One such film on the list of greatly desired viewings was The Grey, which seems to have come and went right at the beginning of the year with little note, save for a handful of serious recommendations from friends and a surprisingly in-depth interview of the film one of the various NPR programs.  Since this point, The Grey has lingered in my mind as something I have wanted so very much to view, and as others are beginning to form their top lists of the year I was quite surprised about its consistent representation on various blogs, ones with distinctly different film tastes and preferences.  As such, I sat some time aside today to visit this film and was expecting something quite exceptional, yet, much to my surprise, The Grey went well-beyond exceptional and provided for a surreal, surprisingly experimental, reconsideration of what one considers in the survival thriller genre.  While Joe Carnahan is perhaps better known for his heavy handed action films, The Grey stands out as something fresh in filmmaking taking the very real primal fears of classic survival films and peppering them with fair amounts of magical realism resulting in a work surprisingly similar to that of Valhalla Rising, yet completely detached from any degree of mythology.  While a few readings of the film could draw out some on-the-nose metaphors and commentaries, it is hard not to overlook these small issues and spout overwhelming praise towards this unconventional film, it stands to reason that it is getting much love as the year winds down because it damn well may be the most overlooked film of last the year.

The Grey centers on the life of a group of oil riggers living rather mundane and disillusioned lives in Alaska, particularly Ottway (Liam Neeson) who is shown contemplating suicide before being distracted by the sounds of wolves.  We are then shown Ottway and others preparing themselves for a flight to some desolate portion of Alaska to do work, all the while Ottway seems distracted by some memories of his wife, so much so that he does everything but yell to convince another passenger, Flannery (Joe Anderson), to leave him in solace.  As the plane travels it becomes quite evident that they are stuck in quite heavy turbulence and when the lights go out the passengers flip out as the plane spirals downward.  Ottway awakes to realize that few survivors remain from the wreckage, and the few who do are already injured or in some degree of shock.  Amongst the sole survivors are the likes of Flannery, the hyper-cyncial Diaz (Frank Grillo), the veritable unifier in the group Talget (Dermot Mulroney) and the unusually quite Hendrick (Dallas Roberts).  If it were not enough that they are suffering from the troubles of maintaining warmth and finding sustenance, it becomes quite apparent that they are directly in the center of a den of wolves who are not at all thrilled that their territory has been compromised.  Of course these are not simple wolves, but some incredibly dangerous gigantic breed of wolf that could only exist in this uncharted portion of the Alaskan wildlife.  Ottway demands that the group moves towards the treeline, as to avoid being surrounded by the angry wolves, this dangerous act inevitably results in the loss of members from the group, whether by wolf attacks or sickness.  As they get farther, individuals wits are tested and their personal struggles exposed, even the seemingly incorrigible Diaz has a turn of heart, however, survival is near impossible and only Ottway remains in the end, and it is while he is arranging a makeshift set of grave markers for his lost companions we realize his previous consideration of suicide is in response to his wife dying in a hospital bed.  However, in the films closing moments viewers are shown a Ottway ready to fight, even in the face of insurmountable odds.

I noted the rather obvious commentaries within this film, ones that could easily be drawn in a variety of different survival narratives, whether they be the notion of penance, an act each of the characters goes through to some degree or another, or the deconstructing of stereotypes and class/racial barriers something which seems to finds its earliest origins in World War II war films.  These are certainly fully present within The Grey, yet I cannot help but rest upon this particular survival films refusal to adhere to the comforts of salvation in the time of fear.  The film certainly uses a purgatory like method of narrative, as we are shown a group of varied sinners existing somewhere between the pain of death and the comfort of life, eventually all but one losing the latter.  Hell, even the pronunciation of Ottway within the film sounds similar to Yahweh, a commentary that must not be ingnored, however, it is precisely this character who denounces the notion of a diety, in this case God, providing last minute salvation.  It is clear from the moment that the crash occurs that Ottway realizes his job is to sacrifice for others as a means of the previously noted penance and he certainly does this, perhaps to a larger degree than is ever necessary.  Yet in one of the films closing scenes Ottway finally denounces God as he demands through a barrage of expletives that he prove his existence.  This, of course, never occurs and Ottway is left with the terrible realization of his own singularity.  It is at this point that he ends up coalescing understandings with the others in his party who have already come to this realization and begin embracing the fleeting memories of their own lives, this occurs most poetically for Talget specifically.  The outcome then with this blatant disregard for Christian based salvation then becomes one of an embracing of the now and a celebration of the memories in the physical, one with its photographs and surreal moments of warmth.

Key Scene:  I have seen a few people favor the tree jump scene as the best moment, I am in no position to argue.

It is a shame that I missed this bit of brilliance in theaters, however, it is available to stream on Netflix, which is a considerably cheaper option.