Available from Panik House | Review by J. Robert Nevets
Sold as a meeting of kings – Teruo Ishii (King of Cult Movie Directors), Yoshiharu Tsuge (King of Underground Comics), and Tadanobu Asano (King of Independent Cinema and star of ICHI: THE KILLER) – SCREWED is more understated and serene than all of this royalty implies. While certainly not as limit-pushing as ICHI: THE KILLER, it is a narrative that portrays a painful state of creative existence and how artistic futility translates into social inability and sexual frustration. It's at once comical, absurd, and depressing. If I could relate it to an American counterpart, I would say that it is something like seeing a faithful screen version of A VELVET GLOVE CAST IN IRON or DAVID BORING, two graphic novels by Daniel Clowes.
In contrast to its bookends of slimy orgies and Butoh-like dancing, the film is pretty tame. For all of their surging sexuality, these sequences merely depict the drawings of the protagonist, Tsube, whose real life could be said to be emasculating at best. He can't pay rent, for example, and his girlfriend Kuniko carries around condoms – lots of condoms – that she doesn't seem to be using with him. Early on, he says, "I'm a wanna-be artist. I'll never make money from what I do." For me, this is the core of futility from which his character spirals, gradually giving way to anxiety and depression.
And that's just the beginning, and almost all we get of their story as Tsube attempts to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills when Kuniko tells him that she is pregnant from a one-night stand she had with a bookstore customer. He wakes up in a stupor while a nurse tries to put a diaper on him. She eventually walks him to the bathroom where he urinates with the pressure of a rhino, drenching her, yet remaining semi-unconscious.
SCREWED progresses in disparate sequences rather than in a linear fashion. He runs from a naked prostitute and next he is on a train going to the beach. He imagines a sexual romp with a young woman who helps run a seaside inn. More than just imagining, he gives himself permission to fantasize about her because he has seen her "walk seductively." As most of the episodes leave one with Freudian readings of his complete sexual inability, this episode ends with him coming back a year later to the same inn only to have the woman not recognize him at all. More overt are the "imagined" orgies, as if the artist can only be rigid in his art or during different fantasies, like when he is "fixed" by a naked female gynocologist. She literally gives him a hard tool – a wrench to be exact.
Those expecting the menace and thrills of ICHI will no doubt be disappointed, but those willing to give the film a chance will be rewarded. Included on the disc is an excerpt from the manga that inspired the film. Based on the material available, the film is an honest rendition of its source. One of the only differences is that the director has inserted certain episodes such as the aforementioned piss-nurse and the fact that frames from the film have been distractingly inserted into this version of the comic – complete with word balloons.
The film has a strange look and the transfer appears to be the best available given that, from what I've read, the film was shot on video. Included on the disc are some galleries, bios, trailers, and the aforementioned virtual comic.
