What
I remembered of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man, when I
first saw it in the big screen sometime during the 1980s, was the
frenzied and high contrast imagery, rather than the story itself,
rather minimalist: a man, a lowly pawn in the economic and social
order in post-war Japan, becomes an iron cyborg, the voyeuristic
camera gazing at his despair as the transformation of his body takes
place. A kind of alchemist transmutation of lowly, rusting, and
discarded iron, into something else, into a kind of cyber cyclop, a
process being guided by an iron fetishist he ran over when going
out for a ride with his girlfriend, on what was termed, at the time,
cyber-punk.
Undoubtedly,
the anarchist anti-establishment ethos of the film, reflected on the
visual craziness, is akin to punk in its frenzied imagery, dislocated
juxtapositions of extremely short abstract takes piled one of top of
the previous one, merging into each other at other times, a frenetic
clash of human flesh and scrap metal, the opening scene being
dramatically brutal, scenes populated by cyber zombies, a recurrent
image of transmuting iron worms acting as a kind of leitmotif across
both films being particularly effective in portraying the sensual
nature of decaying scrap metal, made alive by this process of
transformation. The soundtrack is also rather memorable, adding to
this feeling of brutaleroticism with its torrent of industrial
sequence of sounds, punctuating the torrent of images invading our
eyes.
The
fact that it was shot on black and white 16 mm film stock on a low
budget, as an afterthought , following the success of an underground
theatrical performance, also written and directed by Shinya
Tsukamoto, adds to the aura of transgression surrounding it, which
made Tetsuo: The Iron Man a cult film residing in the outer regions
of cinema, hence this release on DVD and Blu-ray formats under the
third window films
label, together with Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (which is not, really,
its sequel, but a different treatment of the subject), a digitization
process done under the careful eyes of Shinya Tsukamoto. While on
the interview contained in this release, Tsukamoto does not confronts
the political undertones of Tetsuo, implicit in the label of punk, he
does, indirectly, refers to it, as he repeatedly mentions of his work
at the time in an ads agency, and the nature of the first appearance
of Tetsuo as an underground play.
What
most impressed me of both films, but particularly on The Iron Man, is
the beast-like baroque sensuality and eroticism imbued in this
aesthetic of scrap metal and raw flesh, allusions to rusting iron
hinting at not only the hardness of a male industrial fetishism, a
kind of cyber-porn rather than cyber-punk, the scene of the drilling
iron penis sported by the “salaried” man, aimed at his spooked
girlfriend, is probably one of the most memorable sequences in cinema
in its horrendously erotic bestial beauty, a metaphor for the inner
brutality of a certain kind of male psyche; but also to the
industrial decay of abandoned warehouses and factories, dark, scary
underpasses, the harsh environments of urban railways, and roof tops
of faceless skyscrapers (in Body Hammer) that store the countless
pawns that make a contemporary industrial society tick.
By
acts of obsessed will, on both films, the scrap iron littering this
decaying landscape is slowly transformed into cybernetic cyclops,
encompassing and absorbing several individuals (particularly in Body
Hammer), massive and near pornographic cyborgs in their aggressive
maleness, bent on taking on the world, cyborgs of apocalypse
unleashed onto the quiet streets of suburbia, and onto the greyness
of industry.
Women's
roles on both films are subservient to the brutal aggressive and
predatory maleness of their partners, of which they are not aware
until it is too late to step back, a situation savagely alluded in
the scene of the exploding child on a roof top in Body Hammer. In
this sense, women prove to be incapable of arresting this
transformation of their partners, fuelled by a visceral will of
destruction and revenge.
This
will is the trait that unify both films. It does not matter if they
succeed, what is important is that process of transmuting the
materials that litter the edges of a contemporary industrial society,
either rusting iron, or lowly cannon fodder, men and women that no
one sees, into a powerful force that challenges that society, that
established order.
The
bestial beauty of destruction...
And,
perhaps, of creation...
Both
Tetsuo films are part of a tradition of horror/science fiction
genre, although with a rather raw DIY quality, acquiring a kind of
visceral realism, which differs from the more polished mainstream
cinema offerings. I found The Iron Man, the original Tetsuo film, to
be the strongest one of the two, precisely because its story line is
bare, having been reduced to its essential core. Body Hammer makes
too many nods to mainstream cinema in its plot, such as the mad
scientist, the criminal underground organization, the gangster-like
characters, and the flashbacks to childhood traumas. Déjà vu. I
presume the introduction of these elements was to make Tetsuo II a
better box office proposition.
Cyber
-punk, or cyber-porn, transgressive, and ultimately subversive, both
Tetsuo became cult films, yet neutralized by mainstream culture by
the act of pushing them into that box.
Tetsuo:
Thee Iron Man / Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, are out in a 2 disc DVD and
Blu-ray sets in Britain, under the third window films label.
TETSUO:
THE IRON MAN
TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER
(cert 18)
A
film by Shinya Tsukamoto (Kotoko,
Snake of June, Vital)
Two of the most talked-about Japanese cult films of all time makes their way onto a double-disc blu-ray set for the first time in the world with a brand new high definition transfer supervised by Shinya Tsukamoto!
This 2 disc blu-ray and DVD set will include a brand new exclusive interview with Shinya Tsukamoto as well as the first English-subtitled release in the world of his 45 minute pre-Tetsuo student film ‘The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy’ which has also been remastered
The release will feature both a slipcase as well as a reversible sleeve so fans can choose whether they’d rather have an image from Tetsuo I or II on the front of their box.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man - Japan / 1989 / 67 Mins / In Japanese with English subtitles / B&W / 16mm
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer – Japan / 1992 / 83 minutes / In Japanese with English subtitles / Colour / 16mm
DVD/BLU-RAY Special Features:
New High Definition Transfer supervised by Shinya Tsukamoto
Exclusive interview with Shinya Tsukamoto
'The Adventures of Electric Rod Boy' - Shinya Tsukamoto's early film
New UK Trailer
Japanese Theatrical Trailers for both Tetsuo I & II
