this is truly the way to inaugurate the new year: hammer meets akutagawa, but, you know, less so--akutagawa's "jigoku hen," as far as i remember it, is kind of a freaky terrifying miracle of a story, whereas the story of jigoku is more of a painful yet rollicking romp through the various reasons a person could get sent to hell, and then an equally painful yet rollicking romp through hell itself.
i kind of felt like tamura expresses it best as he's getting flayed or something by a dude in a mask: he starts to laugh, and then he's like "THIS IS HELL!" and that's a little how you feel, watching it: half of you's like, "STOP IT!!! JUST STOP IT!!!" and the other half of you is like, "man, hell's the new party town, apparently."
i don't like to let things like unevennesses of plotlines stand in the way of my enjoyment, at least not when it comes to weird, awkward, outside-the-flow-of-the-mainstream movies. the naked kiss is possibly my favorite movie ever, not just because it's great, gorgeously filmed, and weird, but because it responds to my personal aesthetic on many different levels: i like the dreaminess of the sequences, the way that every single scene is...not within the realm of what people tend to think is possible. so i'm not unduly prejudiced against jigoku because its plot is a little off-kilter. i kind of like the way that it takes so much time over the details of how everyone is evil--i kind of like the fact that the plot doesn't let its own disjointment stand in the way of exploring these realms of personal guilt. but it's crappy, pretty much; this is only medium arguable. which is also why i like the criterion collection: they're not afraid of genre. they give you the awesomest in crappy films...as well as the awesomest in good films.
the main problem i had with jigoku was the fact that the damn people kept screaming each others' names over and over. if the main dude had screamed "harumi" one more time, i would have reached out and slapped the '60's. "tamura" was also a favorite, as was "shiro." i admittedly talk to my tv a lot, but i think i was pretty justified in saying, aloud, to the movie, "stop screaming her name and just go GET her, for freak's sake!!! just crawl across the big cart wheel and go get her!!! why are you so afraid of dry ice steam???" (or words to this effect). and they don't just scream, they, like, scream BIG. they screw up all their neck cords and go for it. and they were all doing it. extras, main characters, demons, tortured, whatever. entire sequences cutting from torture to torture, and all of the victims letting out these intense, totally unbelievable, totally soul-grinding screams--seriously, they all sound like tom waits getting cheese grated. it's like one of those things where you're going, "i can't take this." and then suddenly you start to think maybe you can take this. and that's the point at which mark hamil is able to brainwash you if you're john wesley shipp in that one episode of the 90's flash (or the flash?). not flash gordon; the other flash. the one that kathy bates as annie wilkes didn't object to in misery. i am having my own personal nerd-out, here.
oh, and the soundtrack is really cool. i like it when everyone sings a lot. i wonder what happened to that kid who played harumi--did she grow up to love cabbage, or hate it?
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