I don’t know if this is horror, exactly, but it’s Takeshi Miike, so anything goes. Part of the Love Cinema series, which contains six straight-to-video releases by independent filmmakers that played an exclusive engagement at the Shimokitazawa cinema in Tokyo, this was made on digital video to keep the budget low but also capture the look of the video camera used in the movie itself.
The other films were Ryuichi Hiroki’s Tokyo Trash Baby, Mitushiro Mihara’s Amen, Somen and Rugger Men!, Isao Yukisada’s Enclosed Pain, Tetsuo Shinohara’s Stake Out and Akihiko Shiota’s Gips.
Like Terence Stamp in Pasolini’s Teorema, Visitor Q enters the Yamazaki family’s life and changes it. Of course, he also beats the father Kiyoshi (Kenichi Endō) over the head with a rock, teaches the mother (Shungicu Uchida) the magic of lactation and throwing knives at her abusive son, explores the incestuous relationship that the daughter Miki (Fujiko) has with her father and teaches the son (Jun Mutō) to be less violent while still encouraging his parents to murder and hack up his bullies from school.
Somehow, through chaos, necrophilia, vinegar-filled bathtubs, heroin and murder, the family comes back together. Visitor Q has filmed it all, yet created something magical through his rock-bashing psychological torture, I guess. The family unit thrives. Somehow, amid all the blood, feces and breast milk, a traditional heart beats. Who knew Miike had it in him? Then again, he does reinvent himself with nearly every movie.
The limited edition Radiance Films Blu-ray of this film includes audio commentary by Miike biographer Tom Mes; newly filmed interviews with Miike, Kenichi Endo and Showko Nakahara; Mother’s Milk: Visitor Q and the Feminine Principle – new visual essay by Kat Ellinger; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Ana Došen. This limited edition of 5000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with a removable OBI strip leaving the packaging free of certificates and markings, is amazing! You can get it from MVD.
