Adored and abhorred in equal amounts, the dozens of pink films churned out by filmmaker Hisayasu Satô in the late 1980s and 90s frequently veer beyond any traditional notion of good taste in their examinations of voyeurism, obsession, and isolation in the waning days of Japan’s bubble era.
Rarely—if ever—screened outside of Japan until their recent restorations by Vinegar Syndrome, Spectacle is thrilled to present a sampler of three of Satô’s most acclaimed and notorious films this month.
2K restorations by Vinegar Syndrome, courtesy of Muscle Distribution.
AN ARIA ON GAZES (浮気妻 恥辱責め)
Dir. Hisayasu Satô, 1992.
Japan. 65 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SUNDAY, JUNE 14 – 7:30PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 23 – 10PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 30 – 7:30PM
Housewife Kyoko (Kiyomi Itō) begins moonlighting at a mysterious sex club as a means of rebelling against her boring salaryman husband Akihito (Mineo Sugiura). The Bedroom isn’t like any normal sex club, though: the female hostesses all take the powerful sedative Halcion to sleep through their perverse encounters with the male clientele, waking up at the end of their shifts with no memory of what’s been done to them. But when Kyoko decides to explore her fetish for voyeurism by not taking the drug, the lines between fantasy and reality quickly become increasingly blurred—and dangerous.
Loosely adapted from Yasunari Kawabata’s 1961 novella HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES—and featuring a cameo from none other than real-life cannibal Issei Sagawa—AN ARIA ON GAZES (also known as THE BEDROOM) is one of Satô’s most celebrated and visually stunning works.
LOVE – ZERO = INFINITY (いやらしい人妻 濡れる)
Dir. Hisayasu Satô, 1994.
Japan. 62 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, JUNE 6 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, JUNE 12 – MIDNIGHT
SATURDAY, JUNE 27 – MIDNIGHT
Tōru (Takeshi Itō) is a jobless drifter who spends his days following random strangers in a futile search for companionship. But when he’s hired by a doctor to track his mysterious wife’s (Kiyomi Itō) daily activities, he slowly begins to piece together the disturbing motive behind her movements. As the two grow increasingly aware of the other’s presence, violent desires that blur the lines between intimacy and blood ritual begin to erupt within them.
A modern-day vampire story filtered through Satô’s usual themes of urban malaise and voyeurism, LOVE – ZERO = INFINITY is as oddly romantic as it is unsettling.
RE-WIND (アブノーマル 陰虐)
Dir. Hisayasu Satô, 1988.
Japan. 64 minutes.
In Japanese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, JUNE 13 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, JUNE 15 – 10PM
SATURDAY, JUNE 20 – MIDNIGHT
When a grisly, point-of-view snuff videotape is found in a refrigerator, a young man becomes obsessed with tracking down its creator and finding out whether or not the brutal murder depicted on it was real. As he delves deeper into Tokyo’s underground video scene with a female reporter who calls herself Crime Hunter (Kiyomi Itō), his own perversions come to the fore.
Fusing gruesome gore and raw sex while wryly playing tribute to Michael Powell’s seminal PEEPING TOM, Satô’s RE-WIND (also known as CELLULOID NIGHTMARES) is one of the filmmaker’s most powerful and impressive early works.
