on film: Blind Beast (1969) by Yasuzo Masumura

"If it doesn't hurt, it doesn't satisfy me."

Blind Beast is now my very first encounter with Japanese cult filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura (1924 - 1986), and though I don't find it fully convincing, it has successfully aroused my curiosity to discover more of his work.

Masumura's film that builds around a blind sculptor and his relation to a female model he's kidnapped to use her for what is supposed to become his greatest statue, has passages (especially during the middle part) that feel so uninspired, it actually comes as a surprise that the final 15 or so minutes are indeed able to make up for all this. To sum it up: Before it becomes really interesting, the film features some faked seduction attempts by the model, in order to escape her situation, and some less-intriguing reflections on the blind artist's oedipal relationship with his dominant mother. Yet, as soon as the sculptor more or less accidentally kills his jealous mother to protect the model who got physically attacked by her, the film one had expected Blind Beast to be from the get-go, starts to unfold.

It becomes obvious that the abolition of any (social) barrier that tries its best to keep the human race at the apex of creation (to the artisit, it's his constantly observing mother; to the model, her chances and hopes to return to the "real world"), finally leads both main characters into a realm of uncontrolled passion, based on a situation that is almost everything - fascinating, determined, and cruel: He won't let her go (a fact she's fully aware of) and at the same time, she (by now inexplicably and yet still somehow logically also gone blind!) is the only one he's left with. What results are 15 minutes of sado-masochistic love-making, including biting each other, clawing, and finally, cutting off her extremities from her torso. This climactic act of boundless lust occurs when "the stench of his dead mother starts filling the air"; a remark that can be seen as a hint to their awareness of the consequences of their acts, and of a world outside. So the two blind lovers (with her sudden blindness by now appearing to be a further hint by Masumura towards the singularity, finality and irreversibility of this special situation) decide to finish what they call "the art of touching" by disabling her to continue carrying out this art form. In her own words, "in this world, it's the death penalty". As he cuts off her arms and legs, accompanied by her tormented, yet clearly orgasmic screams, we realize that Masumura's decision to limit the use of explicit, on-screen violence (as well as full nudity, which he actually never shows) to a minimum and to make these scenes "violent" rather through his use of sound, fits the film's topic and its characters perfectly: Instead of showing the model's arms being cut off, Masumura depicts the collapse of the statue the artist had created according to her body, intelligently suggesting that it's of no use anymore, as the real work of art is lying there - made of flesh, cut to pieces, swimming in blood.