Philosophy of a Knife

I'm rarely moved to comment on movies and books because others have generally already expressed everything I have to say. No need to repeat.

However, this movie is so appallingly bad that it deserves every terrible review we can collectively muster.

As a documentary, it fails. Too many inaccuracies, too much left out, too many things left unexplained. The man whose interview answers are interspersed throughout was not directly involved in any of it and had nothing new to contribute. The narration, delivered in all its monotone glory, is insipid and adds no insight. Of course, despite purporting to convey a true story, it's not billed as a documentary so I suppose you could forgive the faults. But seriously, this is laughably inaccurate.

As a horror film, it fails. Mostly because it's too long by at least 2 hours, has no momentum and is, frankly, boring. Yes, the experimentation scenes are graphic. But there are only a handful of them – maybe one every 20 minutes? - so this can't even qualify as a gore fest. Besides, the effects are amateurish at best, and no self-respecting horror fan would be impressed. The infamous tooth-pulling scene is shockingly fake. There are numerous lengthy scenes of prisoners sitting around waiting – is Iskanov trying to create suspense? I have this bad habit of doggedly finishing a book or a movie I really don't like or actively loathe, just because I hate leaving something unfinished. I don't usually regret this because it's a conscious decision and I feel I have a better idea of the work as a whole if I actually finish watching or reading it. I regret wasting my time with this movie.

It was some of the most self-indulgent dreck I've ever come across. Iskanov's repetitive use of silent snow-falling-on-gray-building scenes were maddening. I started timing them, and they ranged from about 2 to 6 minutes, making them ideal for bathroom breaks, walking the dog or fixing a sandwich. If you wanted to skip over the Russian guy's interview scenes too, you'd have enough time for a solid power nap.

Actually, don't bother with it at all. Then you don't have to mess with fast forwarding and all that.

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...

This epic is 4 hours long. Much of that 4 hours is the exterior of a building which may or may not be the one in question.

In a prologue the director and I think one of the producers tell us, among other things, that they "did not research" a lot of the facts.

But they say their work is based on facts and that the movie is supposed to be about death and war....

There is a fair amount of interesting stuff in the movie, enough for maybe 90 minutes. But not 4 hours. I think they wanted to give the viewer some sense of ennui by showing the building the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over. It seemed like about 2 minutes of story and 5 minutes of exterior of building in the falling snow for 4 hours.

I may be exaggerating, but not much. As for the story....

Those who know about Unit 731 may be offended by this film as an effort to cash in on a grisly reputation. Others may be offended by it's portrayal of one American and several Russians as the victims of Unit 731. I am pretty sure the majority of victims were a very diverse group consisting of P.O.W.s from all who fought against Japan, Chinese locals and even Japanese criminals. Pregnant women as well as children were also prey to the heinous Japanese "doctors" of Unit 731.

Regardless, the whole thing to me comes off as lame bondage/torture-porn. That you MIGHT get some idea of a story out of if you take notes when they are actually speaking. Even if you are looking for Bondage/toture-porn keep the remote handy, you have a lot of the building in the falling snow from this angle, from that angle, from another angle...all with no narration over and over to fast forward through.

Why is this 4 hours long? Could easily be edited down to 90 mnts

There are some interesting "historical" nuggets interwoven into endless B&W stills

Watch on fast forward if you must

This movie is four hours long for one reason: director Andrey Iskanov wanted it to be. Lacking enough actual subject matter to warrant a four hour running time, he compensates by having virtually every scene go on for at least twice as long as necessary and inserting numerous shots of snow falling, each of which goes on for several minutes. I would say there's close to a half hour of footage of snow in this movie.

We get surgeons meticulously putting on rubber gloves, prisoners being led down hallways, soldiers trudging through snow, bodies being chopped up, flesh being scraped off a skull, and countless other such sequences all in glorious real time. If tedium and banality are what Iskanov was going for he succeeded admirably.

PHILOSOPHY OF A KNIFE is so devoid of any redeeming quality in its current state it barely even warrants discussion. One of the few positive things I can say about it is that I can see a riveting avant-garde horror movie hidden beneath all the baggage. Had he cut out 2/3 of the running time and tightened up all of his individual scenes, this could have been one of the most effective exercises in Hell-On-Earth sensory overload.

Of course, in an introduction which brings new meaning to the word "pontification," Iskanov informs us that this is not a horror movie, though he expects us unsophisticated westerners to think it is. So maybe I'm even wrong about that. Maybe there's NOTHING good to say about this movie.

Watching this movie has forced me to re-assess my opinion of MEN BEHIND THE SUN, which I thought was little more than an exploitive freak show as well. However, in MEN BEHIND THE SUN director T.F. Mou presented the atrocities in a brutally matter-of-fact manner and allowed us to sympathize somewhat with the prisoners. Now I'm thinking that Mou's film is at least somewhat earnest in its depictions of the horrors of Unit 731.

In PHILOSOPHY, Iskanov re-creates the experiments as highly stylized set-pieces that look more like a Nine Inch Nails music video than an attempt to hit home the true horror of these activities. All (and I mean ALL) the prisoners who are tortured are young, good-looking Russian kids with no backstory whatsoever. I wonder how many female prisoners-of-war during World War II had perfect breasts and shaved pubic hair. And while MEN BEHIND THE SUN acknowledged that Russian, European and American prisoners did fall victim to Unit 731, PHILOSOPHY completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of victims were Chinese.

And if what you want is nothing more than blood and guts, even that fails to live up to the hype. The effects (which Iskanov did himself) are amateurish and sloppy. Only a sequence in which a woman's teeth are pulled is even somewhat effective, not because it's well-done, but because pretty much everyone can imagine how much that would hurt. OLDBOY's teeth pulling scene is far more chilling and horrific than this.

This long, boring, dishonest, self-indulgent movie is a major waste of time. I want my four plus hours back.