Blind Beast

Yasuzo Masumura, like many other directors from Japan’s golden age, dabbled in whatever genre his home studio, Daiei, demanded at the time.   But within those confines he found a freedom that allowed him to push the creative limits while still toeing the company line.  Films like Giants and Toys (1958) and Black Test Car (1962), clever cultural critiques of the “salaryman” lifestyle, were not only fun and entertaining, they were essential to the birth of the Japanese new wave. 

 

But Masumura really came into his own during the late ‘60s, free to explore the grotesquely erotic undertones that had popped up under various disguises in his earlier work.  And Blind Beast may be the most accessibly shocking of the bunch, anticipating the psychosexual obsession of modern films like David Cronenberg’s Crash and William Friedkin’s Bug with disturbing precision.

 

Famous for a series of artistic S & M-style photographs, Aki (Maki Midori) is kidnapped by a blind sculptor, Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), obsessed with her body who holds her captive in his warehouse studio.  Attempts to escape are foiled by Michio’s mother (Noriko Sengoku), who plays the role of accomplice in her son’s twisted artistic ambitions.  But Aki seduces her captor, turning the family against one another in a desperate stab at freedom…until her own erotic obsessions begin to work against her.

 

Blind Beast is a film in two parts, the first being a tense but fairly conventional survival story.  But the third act finds Aki embracing all of Michio’s masochistic tendencies and pushing them even further.   It’s not a very believable mental or emotional transition (although I’m sure the Stockholm Syndrome applies), but Masumura’s exploration of their twisted relationship is so powerful that it’s easy to suspend one’s disbelief. 

 

Despite being confined to one location and three characters, the film is visually staggering; Michio’s studio is filled with disembodied limbs, eyes, ears and breasts, along with a giant-size female sculpture that makes a maze of the room.  And Masumura is in complete command of the camera, manipulating his characters and the audience in unexpected ways.  A seminal piece of filmmaking, Blind Beast is upsetting in all the right ways.

 

Arrow’s special edition Blu-ray is a perfect introduction to the film, with a straight-up flawless transfer, audio commentary, introduction, visual essay and collector’s booklet.

 

 

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