Organ

I'm astonished at some of the bad-reviews of this film--ignore them. If you love extreme cinema that explores the basis of the human-animal, you have found a home in the cinematic space-time continuum. Ostensibly, this is a Yakuza and detective film, with elements of film-noir and expressionism. It is not a purely genre film at-all, but an art-film with incredible complexity about what it is to be human. Fujiwara is best-known for her role in Tsukamoto Shinya's "Tetsuo: the Iron Man", and her relationship to his work shows here. The human-body is the battlefield, as well as the human-soul. Maybe it took an inspired woman to say this, and a Buddhist at-that. And in many-ways, this feels like a tale by Edgar Allan Poe! It has that feel to it, a very visceral, filth-covered psychology--what much real horror is. In-fact, I'd say it is on-par with Poe and his Japanese-analogue, "Edogawa Rampo" (a pen-name). This is a film I have watched several-times, and it always delivers a new-revelation. One-viewing is not enough to begin to understand it. If it is ugly, it is because life has ugliness. If it has beauty (it does), it is because life does.

There are roughly two narrative-paths in the film: first, the story of the outsider detective searching for his "dead" partner after their uncovering of a horrific black-market organ-smuggling ring run by Yakuza, and secondly, the story of the insiders of the ring, a brother-and-sister. The detective's-half reminded me strongly of Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" (aka "Nora Inu", 1949), and is probably a conscious-nod by Fujiwara. The brother has reanimated the lost-cop and is doing hellish experiments on him, while the sister--Yoko--runs the gang and fends-off the outside world. It's an interesting structure, which makes the film watchable numerous times, but the philosophical-themes of birth-and-death are even more rewarding. Yes, it is extremely low-budget, and shot in 16mm, but it is a well-executed film by a genuine maverick.

At the film's philosophical-center is the relationship with the surgeon-brother in the organ-ring, and the reanimated-cop. As grotesque as the half-dead cop appears, he is more human than the internally-diseased brother. In-fact, he is metaphor for the surgeon's remnants of humanity; Fujiwara makes it clear that the brother and sister were horribly-abused, the origin of their spiritual-decay and sadism. The reanimated-cop is hidden-away by the surgeon in a secret room, and they have an "internal-dialog." The other-half of the narrative is also very powerful, with the outsider detective's obsession with finding his partner taking a horrible-toll on his family. It seems that being a cop hasn't done him or his home any good--even before the body-snatching incident. Fujiwara paints life as-such: birth, mutilation at the hands of others, and finally, death. Sadly, this is the fate that awaits many human-beings in this inhuman era we inhabit. Out of this, one could surmise that Mrs. Fujiwara has a strong-ambivalence to motherhood. What is puzzling is why many women do not. This film is a contemporary-masterpiece. "Organ 2" has been completed, so expect more-of-the-same!

01.21.06 PS: It's hilarious how people don't get this incredible-film, but I believe it is still ahead-of-the-pack. American-audiences are used to a more linear-narrative structure, whereas audiences in Japan and Europe understand a film that is primarily thematic.

Ultra-auteur (writer, director, DP & star) Kei Fujiwara takes a bold step into a bloody landscape where Cronenburg drops acid with Lynch as D. Argento serves up livermush sandwiches to the late Mr. Fulcio.

Fine. Unfortunately she forgot to bring along some extra flashlights to brighten up her plethora of grainy, murky scenes, and pack a script that was at least halfway finished before production commenced. Not so fine.

Engrossing in some scenes, but infuriatingly obtuse throughout, ORGAN needs at least SOME sort of linear spine to hang its meat hooks on (and more violence would to boot). While watching the film, one senses that many scenes could have been cut in any order, and it still wouldn't affect the narrative much. Sigh. Still, it's required viewing for any blind dates, or first-time meetings with a potential mother-in-law!

I really like this movie. I think it's really artful but also disturbing. In fact I understand that some people don't like it because the movie is hard to understand, and it has so much story in it, that I can't make a summary. Also is the Japanese filmgenre very different from the American and Europe cinema, and not all people like this. But this is really a must see for fans of movies like Pi, Tetsuo or Tetsuo II. It got all in it, dream scenes, disturbing gore scenes, a good soundtrack and a bad atmosphere, because everything in the movie is dirty, cold, ugly and brutal. So if you like to watch something different then a mainstream Hollywood movie you have to get this cool journey to the insane world of Kei Fujiwara

I just watched this movie last night, and I didn't understand it until I read the Mondo Macabro entry on it by Pete Tombs, and some of the reviews here (evidently, I'm not alone in thinking this film loses power by sacrificing narrative clarity for thematic integrity). The fact that the film is low budget and shot in 16mm (somewhat grainy; it would be great to see a Blu-Ray version with better subtitles) adds to the viewer's frustration. Still, Kei Fujiwara has undoubtedly created a nightmarish alternate universe and managed to get it on film which is at least worth five stars.

Organ is really more of an avant garde art film than straight horror, but then again, if you watch a lot of Japanese horror, you've probably noticed that this island culture takes the genre more seriously than in the west (which tends to see it as a more exploitive, money-making, freshman-director type genre). I can't say I enjoyed watching Organ much, but I do respect the director's unflinching vision and daring in bringing such a brutally dark tale to fruition.

For the first half, I was actually enjoying this quite a bit. I appreciated the gore (the hallucinatory sequence of one of Saeki's victims emerging from a cocoon-like object is easily the highlight to the film's gore) and found some of the disturbing bits to the film quite promising. For instance, Saeki having a secret room in his school office where dead and mutilated bodies were stored (Numata's brother, for instance) was a disturbing concept. I also found Numata's investigation of the gang compelling since it came with emotional stakes. For the first half of the film, I was on board with the film and eager to see how everything could culminate. Unfortunately though, somewhere around the halfway point, the film gets increasingly harder to follow. With so many characters and motivations being added, it became more and more difficult to keep track of who was who and what the motivations of everyone was. Eventually, many scenes in the second half made me ask "Where did this come from?" repeatedly. This culminated in a messy and ponderous final act which took all kinds of confusing fates to the various characters and crammed them into each other in a very unpleasant way. The final fight in Saeki's school office was horrendously messy, in particular. Also, while I enjoyed the gore at first, it didn't ramp up as the film went on and eventually got to a point where I kept asking "Didn't they already repeat a similar effect several times?" as I watched it. So yeah, just a big letdown overall. I wouldn't quite call it a bad film though as the first half contained enough potential to prevent it from being a complete waste of time and, in spite of what I said about the second half, there were a few promising moments thrown into the mix (that was few and far between though) that gave me brief breaks from the second half's mostly ponderous tone.