Sakuran / Helter Skelter


While the floodgates finally opened for classic Japanese cinema not that long ago, contemporary filmmakers don’t seem to have the same cache among collectors. But perhaps 88 Films’ release of Sakuran (2007) and Helter Skelter (2012), both from acclaimed photographer and advertising veteran Mika Ninagawa, will inspire a bit more curiosity. Set in different centuries but dealing with the same pitfalls of beauty and fame, Ninagawa does more than make pretty pictures; she pulls the directorial strings with uncommon skill and righteous neo-feminist fury.

In Sakuran, that fury simmers beneath layers of silk and spectacle. Kiyhoha (Anna Tsuchiya) is a courtesan in the famous Edo-era red light district who refuses to be molded into something more manageable, raging against the machine that’s trapped her like a goldfish in a jar. Mixing in contemporary music and a punk rock attitude (think Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette), the result is less a traditional period drama and more a sensory uprising against it.


Helter Skelter drags those same obsessions into the modern age and turns the screws with surgical precision. Supermodel Lilico (Erika Sawajiri) is a perfect plastic creation whose fame is as manufactured as her body…but both are rotting from within. Ninagawa is on familiar ground here as she skewers the haute couture culture that enjoys watching their icons painful collapse even more than their rise. Based on a manga and dripping in a gorgeously suffocating visual aesthetic, Helter Skelter attacks the same impossible beauty standards as recent diatribes like The Substance and The Ugly Stepsister. But Ninagawa’s film is even more sexually ruthless.

Taken together (but sold separately), the films feel like companion pieces in an ongoing argument about autonomy, identity the male gaze, both grounded by hypnotic lead performances. Ninagawa isn’t just questioning those beauty standards, she’s weaponizing them, utilizing her skill at creating artifice to strip things down to the machinery underneath. They might overstay their welcome at times and make one metaphor too many, but they never ever lose your attention.

Released as a numbered limited-edition Blu-ray, Sakuran includes an introduction, audio commentary, still gallery, trailer and essential liner notes that explain the history of the legendary Yoshiwara red light district. Helter Skelter adds a commentary, interviews, Making Of, film premiere footage, film festival Q & A, rehearsals, stills, trailer and another spot-on set of liner notes.







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