Blind Beast

Aki is an artist's model. She goes to a massage parlour and a blind masseur attends to her. The man abducts her. When she wakes she is in a warehouse; the walls are covered with parts of women's bodies, giant sculptures stand on the floor, and the place is entirely dark. Michio is a blind sculptor; unable to see, he works by touch, and to him the real art is the art of touch. He wants to use Aki as a model. His mother is there too and helps her son. Aki tries to escape. Then something changes and she stops wanting to. Yasuzō Masumura directs. Eiji Funakoshi, Mako Midori and Noriko Sengoku are in the cast. The source is Edogawa Rampo's novel. The set is at the centre; the warehouse was designed as a set and the giant body parts made by hand. The narrative takes place almost entirely in one space with three performers. The matter it treats is the senses; how touch builds a world once sight is removed is worked out directly. As the film proceeds the light decreases and the last section takes place in darkness. Masumura worked inside the studio system in that period and this is counted among his most extreme works. Its ending is extremely hard and nothing is explained. Its limit is the watching; the subject is uncomfortable, the violence direct, and the narrative takes no moral position. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese cult cinema and extreme narrative. Who it is not for: it is extremely uncomfortable, the subject heavy, and the ending hard to bear.