[3], The film struggled to find an audience until it was shown at the horror film festival Fantafestival in Rome in 1989 and received the award for best film. At the same time you can see how it has influenced everything from the shlock-exploitation film Machine Girl to Darren Aronofsky’s debut feature film Pi to industrial trailblazers Nine Inch Nails. Probably the most vivid and memorable expression of this comes during a scene when the protagonist, known simply as the “salaryman”, becomes fully possessed by the spirit of Yatsu, someone whom the salaryman had struck and killed with his car. 1 Through this possession, Yatsu has the salaryman go through extreme metallic mutation which inevitably causes him to grow a metallic drill-like penis. Prior to killing his girlfriend, we see the scene of the salaryman accidently striking and killing Yatsu with a car. That of course all falls to the wayside when he realises he is actually turning into a machine. After this success it was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by Original Cinema in 1992. After Tetsuo, Tsukamoto became a a major figure in Japanese film, and Taguchi's own career took off as well. - Does anyone have relevant references to this? Which mathematician traveled to and moved in with each collaborator? Tetsuo is an Experimental Movie released in 1989 by Japanese director Shin'ya Tsukamoto. Tetsuo established Tsukamoto internationally and created his worldwide cult following. Tetsuo’s one of my favourite offbeat films of all time. In it, we start with an exciting, fairly typical montage of shots leading up to the crash. It is shot in the same low-budget, underground-production style as his first two films. It’s a very apt name: ‘Tetsuo’ means “clear thinking man” or “iron man”. What's hardest to convey in mere language is how fast the film moves. Parts from discarded TVs were taped onto the actors' skin to create the effect of the body transforming. Close. : It is said that the scene where the business man 'kills' the metal fetishist by throwing his arguably alive body into the wood which arouses his girlfriend to an extend of her having sex with him, inspired Lars Von Trier to make a movie. While shaving in his apartment, he notices a metal spike protruding from his cheek that spurts blood when he touches it. [1][4] In Tom Mes' book about the film he interviewed Tomorowo Taguchi, the actor who plays the Salaryman (the only member of cast and crew who didn't constantly live on set), who noted, "It was very tough so I quickly sensed that if you would stay with them all the time, you would inevitably get the urge to escape. Given this, I also find the crash sequence one of the more poignant examples of Tsukamoto’s stated interest of expressing “eroticism through iron” (Mes 59). Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Analysis, Interpretations and randomness. Originally he had short lightly-textured hair, but grew as a result of his a… She notices an abomination of flesh and metal on the ground. But it’s not that simple and probably not even true. Print. Suddenly the salaryman's penis is transformed into a large metal drill and he soon loses control, attacking his girlfriend. As Brown writes, this scene is fascinating as it not only prefigures Cronenberg’s Crash , which similarly treats car crashes in an erotic and voyeuristic manner, but also the Japanese translation of J.G. [3], The name of this character is translated to "Metal Fetishist" in English subtitles, but in the original Japanese credits is listed only as "yatsu", which translates to "guy", "Capturing a World in a Crystal Ball: A Conversation with Kei Fujiwara", "Solid Metal Nightmares: The Films of Shinya Tsukamoto", "Tetsuo: The Ironman (1989) - Rotten Tomatoes", "Review/Film; Forgoing the Flesh For Metallic Pleasures", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tetsuo:_The_Iron_Man&oldid=983605988, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 15 October 2020, at 05:42. An iconic mind-melting scie Afterwards, his girlfriend eats suggestively, each interaction with the food accompanied by the screeching sounds of metal. Specifically, it’s emblematic of hyperkinetic style used in Sogo Ishii’s early films like Burst City and Crazy Thunder Road . Print. A metal fetishist enters his Tokyo hideout, which is full of rusted parts and photos of famous athletes. Really random and cool. A fight ensues and the fetishist chases the Iron Man across the city, before being briefly incapacitated by a vision from childhood where he is repeatedly beaten by a vagrant with a metal rod. Upon realizing this, the Iron Man attempts to electrocute himself but it only serves to stimulate him further. One 67 Minutes Movie. This strange Japanese movie isn’t too big on exposition. [citation needed] The film was released twice on DVD in the United States; by Image Entertainment in 1998[6] and by Tartan Video in 2005. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) is the legendary post-apocalyptic cult classic from Shin'ya Tsukamoto. I mentioned the label "cyberpunk" at the top of this piece. Starting with Tetsuo: the Iron Man ‘s handling of anxiety, we find the melding of pain and pleasure. Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Analysis, Interpretations and randomness, Responding to the Lavender Letter and commitments moving forward. Shinya Tsukamoto's eros-and-thanatos story doesn't always work, but gets an A+ for dazzling effort anyway, Nisioisin's twelve-novel cycle of a 'swordless swordsman' and 'strategemist' on a weapons hunt is, in its English edition, a gold standard for how to translate cutting-edge cultural properties, A real delight: a smart, fleet-footed story inspired by classic con-man comedies, and with correspondingly more to bring to the table than other anime, By Serdar Yegulalp | May 16, 2019 | Share:   | No comments. Seems legit. Print. Tsukamoto chose these handmade methods because he couldn't afford to do it any other way. Furuhata, Yuriko. Well then here’s your chance. Later, he unwraps the wound to discover it rotting and covered with maggots. The salary man's transformation into "the Iron Man" is complete. [10], The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. The fetishist easily overpowers the Iron Man and shows him a post-apocalyptic vision of the "New World" - the Earth consumed by metal. What strikes me is the way in which Tsukamoto doesn’t use sex to suggest pleasure, but rather uses the film’s form to represent this lethal accident in a pleasurable, almost sensual fashion. Upon realizing this, the Iron Man attempts to electrocute himself but it only serves to stimulate him further. Later he is assaulted by a crazy woman under the influence of some type of technology and that night he has a terrifying nightmare in which his girlfriend is a machine monster intent on raping him. Ed. It’s a weird film. By integrating these shots which convey a video and television aesthetic, Tetsuo: the Iron Man also expresses an interest in uniting various forms of visual media. Want to play it for free? With this strong interest in blending media, Tetsuo: the Iron Man ends up fitting into one of the strongest traditions of Japanese experimental filmmaking. [8] All releases are currently out of print. What movie would that be? Instead, he strategically uses it to continue the film’s cybernetic interest of linking man with machine.