Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Uzumaki - Movie
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This past Thanksgiving break, I rented a Japanese film entitled Uzumaki. It was so interesing I think I may have to rent it again over winter break. The general outline of the plot is this: it takes place in a small Japanese town where everything seems to go as it should. Slowly, things begin to change, people begin to change...subtle foreshadowings that stand ominous but vague. Then a potter gets a request for a piece designed with spiral patterns, the girls in school wear their hair curled instead of straight, teachers scribblings become series of circling penmarks. Clouds begin to swirl, people begin to consume water as consistently as they breath air and they no longer eat but fixate on the spiraling patterns in thier soup, students only come to school when it rains. A man videotapes his suicide, filming a washing machine going round and round, stopping it, climbing inside and spinning to his death. His wife then assumes a spiral phobia, cutting off the skin on her fingertips to rid herself of the pattern of her fingerprints. What is going on? Towards the end, some evidence unfolds suggesting the possessions and fixation stem from writings uncovering the inherent meaning of this obscure symbiology. Spirals, snailshells, serpents...a lake? The plot is as spiraling as its subject and ends as chaoticly and crypitcly as most of these pictures tend to do. It's even seasoned with a little tragic romance amongst the twists and turns. Highly recomended. Check it out here.
# posted by Alyssa @ 1:07 AM 
