Sion Sono, he da man, He is a POET

Another MIFF highlight for me was seeing the two latest films from the master, Sion Sono; Cold Fish and Guilty of Romance. Both on the big screen, which is such a treat for his films.

Cold Fish is a rollicking ride of blood, sex, gore and religion, though his underlying ever present themes of love and family cut through the sensational and anchor the film into classic Sono territory. His sense of humour is at its perverse best with declarations of love coming from blood soaked characters sitting in amongst chopped up corpses, I mean what else could you think of in moments like that? I’ve seen it twice and I’ll admit that the second time around was much better, I was able to get under the surface of the gore and around a very ‘shouty’ character (Denden's Mr Murata) as well as have the double appreciation for Megumi Kagurazaka who plays Taeko, the not so but sort of wicked and veryily bored step mother. Well worth a view and a must see for Sion Sono fans. (Sushi Typhoon)

 

Just when you thought he’d topped himself with Cold Fish along comes Guilty of Romance. How prolific is this man?….thank god, what a treat. Down and dirty onto the street and the cheapest of cheap. This is a tale of conservative shackles being thrown to the wind, of high inteligensia going full circle to plumb the depths of depravity and perversion.
“Words are meaningless without actions” says the professor of literature and then she demonstrates her stand. WOW!
This is another film based on reality or true events? Ha, what does that mean? 

I think the most grounding aspect of both of the films is their are hyper-reality, they are exaggerated to a point where they are very watchable and then the message of the director can be seen. I watched an Australian film called X which was also about two street prostitutes but it based itself in social realism (unsuccessfully I thought) and as a result was very hard to watch through its violence, sex and drug scenes. It fell into the exploitation genre and seemed to be a bit gratuitous with not a lot of meaning behind the actions. These are criticisms often leveled at Sion Sono but I always feel that his scenes, no matter how down and dirty they get always have purpose behind them and although they do indeed make one squirm it is not the same as when it is played with the straight bat of realism. This is not a criticism of X, I actually really enjoyed it but when you compare the two you start to get a real appreciation of what Sion Sono is up to.

 Megumi Kagurazaka plays Izumi (housewife turned model) and does a stirling job along with Makoto Togashi playing Mitsuko (a literature professor by day and prostitute by night) and Miki Mizuno who plays Kazuko (a police officer). All three sum to a triumph in this twisted, intertwined tale of woe.

Yes Guilty of Romance was my favourite of the two films but both will satisfy any Sion Sono fan and probably sicken most others. The man is prolific and on a roll, he is a POET! 

Catch these two before his next comes out on the blocks.

Himizu (ヒミズ) is due out in 2012 and yes Megumi Kagurazaka will be in it....yi ha