PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE is not a horror / splatter / gore film. It is not meant to be enjoyed, or viewed as entertainment. It's not meant as pure exploitation, either. KNIFE is a documentary of sorts, by Director Andrey Iskanov, about the notorious UNIT 731 and the inhuman experiments conducted there during WW II.
The horrific, insanely extreme sequences are reenactments, much like in any other documentary. The difference being, of course, that Iskanov recreates the atrocities in as viciously realistic detail as possible. He intends for us to go along with these prisoners / test subjects for every excruciatingly long second of their hideous deaths. We are supposed to experience every bit of the terror, anguish, and torture of this mindless experimentation. All without hope of reprieve or possibility of escape. We are there for the deadening monotony of systematic mass murder.
This, as Iskanov drives home, is a slaughterhouse for human beings. He wants witnesses present for one of the darkest, most heart-destroying times in history. He makes a convincing case that man is capable of anything.
Anything.
One of the more chilling aspects of the film is the voice-over narration by Manoush, portraying a nurse at UNIT 731. Her words make it absolutely clear that in order to play a part in acts such as these, she had to forfeit her very soul.
This movie contains ultra-graphic scenes of human vivisection, mutilation, and other horrors that only a true sadistic psychopath could "enjoy". Rating this ten stars because I "love it" would be absurd and insane. No, the rating is high because it does exactly what it sets out to do. It takes us to this inconceivably terrible place, and makes us not only watch, but feel what is happening there. It does this in spite of its many flaws and budgetary constraints.
Not all stories have happy endings -or beginnings or middles- and exist simply because someone believed they had to be told...
