08/21/06 Uzumaki

Uzumaki (2000), directed by Higuchinsky

watched w/ Leslie (partially); DVD rental (Blockbuster) @ home; suggested by Jason

Let it be known that I have a personal affinity to the shape of a spiral. I always have, probably always will (no matter what scary Japanese cinema tries to hit me with). It's something mesmerizing and hypnotic to look at, I realize that, but it's a calming and natural configuration that can be found in many different instances in life. Whether your talking about a snail shell, staircase, barbershop pole, or ear drum...they all consist of the vertigo-inducing effect of a spiral. "Uzumaki" is the Japenese word for spiral, which in geometric definition is described as "a plane curve generated by a point moving around a fixed point while constantly receding from or approaching it." That's the long way of saying "trippy curved line that makes your eyes bug out!" Long taken as a symbolic treat by hippies and hypnotists alike, the film attempts to address in horrific fairy tale fashion just how entrancing one's fascination with an object can be. Focusing on a small Japanese town where peoples' curiosities of spirals gets out of hand, this dark tale is bewitching and eerie. Young Kirie finds that her boyfriend's father is one of the people in the town who is mysteriously taken in by all things spiral, videotaping for hours on end a snail shell or eating only sushi with a spiral shape to it. The man's obsession with spirals becomes overwhelming, as he slowly slips into a maddening world of objects, losing his grasp on reality. Kirie's father, a potter, also becomes part of the nightmare as he begins shaping pottery that only has spirals in it...and both Kirie and her boyfriend try everything they can to escape the mental clutch the uzumaki have on their town. The inhabitants begin to notice many more things that become sucked into the vortex of these spirals, including one girl's hairdo that weaves into spiralling loops, circling smoke clouds from the crematory, and a brutal suicide by whirling washing machine (which is made even creepier by a nightmare that Leslie had about washing machine deaths only the night before...eerily foreshadowing this movie and her exemption from having to watch it). The macabre tones to the film are offset by wacky antics by the obsessed townsfolk...all giving the film a superb quality of fantasy and fright. Maybe I've been sucked into the evil spiral, but I fell in love with the object and the film.

5 out of 5 stars