Cover Art

Credits

Director: Yasuzo Masumura Starring: Eiji Funakoshi, Mako Midori, Noriko Sengoku Screenplay: Yoshio Shirasaka Country: Japan

External Links

In Japanese society this has increasingly become the realm of cinema. Startling arrays of sexually oriented films - with varying degrees of explicitness - have been spread across screens for decades. Not only have these films been of a sexual nature, they have also explored other deviant themes, often crossing over into darker territory. Some have dealt with mutant beasts attacking nubile young women, as in Guts of a Virgin, or with kidnap and rape, for instance in Star of David: Beautiful Girl Hunter. Others have looked at obsession, as with In the Realm of the Senses, or S&M as in the Flower and Snake series. In the nascent stages of Japanese horror and erotic cinema, and one of the first cinematic realisations of sexual obsession and S&M, is Yasuzo Masumura’s Blind Beast (Moju).

We meet Aki (Mako Midori), the narrator in Blind Beast and principle antagonist, at the opening of a photographic art exhibition, where she was the principal model. The pictures show her in a variety of elegant bondage poses, but the centrepiece is a life-size sculpture of her. When she enters the exhibit she sees a blind man (Eiji Funakoshi) fondling the statue with almost reverential awe. She is startled, seemingly as much by her own attraction to this event as to the repulsion she feels. Aki quickly leaves the building.

A few days later she orders a masseur to come to her apartment, and she is greeted by a blind man. It is the same man from the gallery, but Aki is too preoccupied to notice. She becomes aggravated at the masseuse as his massage turns more sexual and he repeatedly fondles her buttocks and breasts. When Aki tries to get him to leave, the blind man chloroforms her, and too late she recognises him. Once unconscious, the blind man’s mother comes into the apartment to assist in escorting her away to their isolated farmhouse.

Upon awakening, Aki finds herself in a subterranean lair. Her kidnapper reveals himself to be Michio (Eiji Funakoshi), a would-be sculptor who wishes to create a new kind of tactile art for the blind. We then are slowly shown the surreal world Michio has created for himself, a giant studio that has all sizes of eyes, arms, legs, breasts, ears and noses adorning the walls, created from his recollection of touching women through massage. The centrepieces are two gigantic sculptures of the female form, one lying face-up, the other face-down. The majority of the film is played out on the surface of these two prostate monoliths, Aki sitting between two huge breasts while Michio speaks with her, idly caressing his creation, with walls of body parts staring down at them.

Michio asks Aki to be his model for his new type of art. Understandably, Aki refuses and tries to escape, only to be foiled by Michio’s mother (Noriko Sengoku), an overbearing type who supports her son in all his endeavours. The film descends into a tragic confrontation, starting an unstoppable degeneration into sado-masochistic sexual insanity.

Blind Beast was originally written by Japanese author Edogawa Rampo, whose works have been adapted for film since the 1920’s. Masumura brought in elements of John Fowles novel, The Collector, and created a claustrophobic tale about perverted desire and human obsession. Superbly portrayed by the two main leads, Mako Midori is at turns caring, manipulative and entranced throughout the film. It also helps that she is absolutely stunning. Eiji Funakoshi is equally impressive, bringing a depth to a role that could have simply been repulsive; you care about and sympathise with his motivations and feel his pain at not being able to realise his dreams. Masumura’s set design, use of lighting and shot construction similarly raise this above the ordinary.