Day 101: Tetsuo, The Iron Man

"There's a piece of metal stuck in your head. If I remove it, you'll die. Think of it as artistically placed there."

You know you are in for a surreal movie experience when the film in question is advertised as "David Lynch meets David Cronenberg." Tetsuo, the Iron Man" details a "metal fetishist" who is involved in a brutal car crash, eventually meeting his death at the wheels of a salary man and his girlfriend. The salary man begins to notice a dynamic shift in his body: It is being slowly overtaken by scrap metal. As the film progresses, we begin to suspect that the "metal fetishist" is perhaps not fully dead,and is guiding his transformation fueled revenge.

If this plot seems campy, it is. The film is certainly more reliant upon atmosphere than constancy in narrative, or complex plot devices. For a film with such an eccentric plot, one that would not seem out of place being written out with a stick in a sandbox, "Tetsuo, The Iron Man" can be rather confusing. The film is shot in black and white(in 1989 no less), contains extremely limited special effects, and was completed in 16MM, a far cry from the standard 35MM and even Imax cameras that now fill your local movie theaters. Whereas many cult films shot in a would seem solely outdated, or something considered a sin in the realm of authenticity that cult films are supposed to tap:Corny & Boring. Tetsuo, The Iron Man" is neither, thankfully. Based around a Japanese cyberpunk aesthetic, even the most absurd subversion's of film making norms actually serve to complement the hyper expressiveness and mania that pervades every second of "Tetsuo."

I first saw "Tetsuo,The Iron Man" when I was 12. It's safe to say it was lost on me,beyond my simple observation that the salary man's head, full of bulging mechanical equipment, looked "weird", or that the fact that a woman was having sex with a man with a drill for a penis was a little unerving, I revisited the film two months ago, spurred by a recent viewing of "Akira" in which I noticed striking similarities. 9 years later, and I still can't say I understand the film completely, or even what genre I would place it in. I don't know where to place it in the halls of my memory, but, by God, it's there. Watch the film, you can even turn the sound off if you like. I guarantee you'll find yourself marveling at the technical ingenuity and narrative subversion's. This is a film that ingrains itself within you, a slow burner in the seeds of your sleep, destined to keep building,and building,and building,and building...........