Saturday, 21 February 2015

TETSUO:
The Ironman
(1989)

80%

Men Alienated by their Inventions

Aside from the occasional self-indulgent pretension, this is a startling body-horror movie of some brilliance. It is what the remake of The Fly was and what both Eraserhead, Bad Taste and Videodrome could have been if they had had the courage.

Focusing on the external bodily changes of the characters, it creates a metaphorical world in which Man has become his own machine as his own inventions begin to devour Him and take Him over. This movie also analogizes Westernized materialistic relationships that become mechanical through an obsession with sex.

Here, human beings do not sweat to cool down but to lubricate their moving parts from the outside. Their alienation is exemplified by gross bodily-transformations that border on the ridiculous. But the humor here is decidedly black in this tale of a Frankenstein who is both creator of the monster and the monster itself. The transformations - expressed in terms of ingesting and regurgitating from various bodily orifices - are stylistically reminiscent of the animations of Jan SVANKMAJER.


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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.