"His films are like a roller-coaster. His way of throwing the act of seeing into utter confusion is an attack on the eyes in their corporeal function, and to attack the eyes is to take on tile body itself as your opponent. The film makes you break out in sweat only by shooting a safe, peaceful gymnasium in the dark." - Koharu Kisaragi
Japan
Japan
far too high
for this shit,
almost lost
my eyesight
permanently.
100/100
A full-fledged masterpiece of perception and time, shifting and playing with our own ideas of dimension, location, and surrounding before it all crashes down into an effortless "beyond" experience. Equivalent in vivid texture and motion to the final act of 2001: A Space Odyssey or the river sequence in The Night of the Hunter. Such an immediate, expansive rush. A must-see.
So.... do I go to the hospital now guys?
I feel kinda weird.
Like 50% “how the hell do you do that?” and 50% “how the hell had nobody ever thought to do that before?”
Takashi Ito is one of my favorite filmmakers, and this is perhaps is most famous work, a short film that accomplishes, with seemingly few resources, what amounts to an experience that exponentially expands time and space, and makes an otherwise mundane moment feel like the infinite.
It does have a hypnotic way of warping space and time that can feel almost dizzying and confusing, but this is ultimately to the benefit of the work. I love in particular how organic and fresh it still feels, and the fact that the work never tries to hide its homemade feel about it makes it even more spectacular in its approach and presentation and overall effect. It has a kind of quick flash effect to it in places and so it might not be easy to watch for some, especially those who are sensitive to quick flashes, but for others this is strongly strongly recommended.
This film honestly made me feel like I was going to die (that's no exaggeration).
a fun prank if you wanted to actually kill someone is to give them a tab and force them to watch this
Ah yes, a gamechanger
He certainly wasn't the first Japanese director to make unsettling films, obviously, but in many ways it feels accurate to call Ito the father of J-horror. The preoccupations with filmic technology and the broader unease with which technology is displayed, the disorientations of the most basic techniques, and the manner in which the quotidian and everyday becomes suffocating and nightmarish all prime the pump for later narrative filmmakers like Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Do not worry friends—this has nothing to do with Kevin.
Who the fuck needs drugs when Ito exists
Why does every single thing about this make so much sense? Everything from all the changes in direction to the choice of a gymnasium as the location. It's such an aggressive and volatile object and yet it is as perfect and full-formed as a diamond (getting smashed into your skull a million times).
