MovieChat Forums > Ranpo jigoku (2005) Discussion > Didn't understand 'Mars Canal'

Didn't understand 'Mars Canal'

posted 17 years ago by spanishfli
7 replies | jump to latest

The first movie short of the film... I just couldn't understand it and I've seen it several times and towards the end I've concluded...

It's way above my head.

And does this man have breasts? Was the woman a "male" because she was unusually buff for a woman, and a Japanese woman at that who are in my mind very soft and very feminine women.

Was this person fighting him or her self?

Nonetheless,
I'm buying this movie just for "Catapillar" which is one of the most disturbing and visually stunning of movies I've seen in my life. I'm also getting a collection of Taro Hirai stories for Christmas.

[–] the_negotiator-1 17 years ago

Mars Canal? Is that the one with the Tadanobu Asano's character beating his wife? I dont particularly understand it either - and as much as I hate to say it, it looks very much like a rip off of Chris Cunningham's short art-farty thing 'Flex' its almost identical, even the sounds! I very much like 'Flex' as well; so its frustrating to see it being imitated - whether on purpose or not...

I guess Mars Canal has something to do with polymorphus perversity - sex, in otherwords...how both the man and the woman become 'one' or something equally odd...the canal? I dunno? Vaginal canal? The small pool of water..Ejaculate or perhaps an embryo? And Asano flopping about - could he be the sperm that made it?

Why is his wife in a sanatorium as well? Could it have been a miscarriage? After all, giving birth is a very brutal process for the woman's body so the whole thing could just be a representation of that...or perhaps a representation of an abortion? Hence the blood and the violence etc...

Could be anything really - might be worth tracking down Rampo's original writing 'Mars Canal' must be a Rampo website out there somewhere...I only really watched this film because Tadanobu Asano was in it...

Also, the 'catapillar' reminded me alot of the video for the Radiohead song 'Paranoid Android' - probably because there is a 'catapiller' bit in that too more than anything else...

[–] TeeWee30 17 years ago

.......you and me both.

The only thing I could pull out of "Mars Canal" was a man transported to an alien, barren landscape of the mind through violence. Then no sound made me think of the ear canal.

I know, it's a reach.

__________________________
Greetings,
Need I say more? You are remembered.

[–] juliankennedy23 17 years ago

Who did? It was as if Yoko Ono filmed Zardoz with the sound off. It was arty and thankfully short but it's is a very strange way to start the anthology. On a note the DVD at least had a warning that the first film has no sound and that some of the special effects were purposely bad. I love that second warning. I can think of hundreds of films that would have benefited from it. Starting with every made for Sci-Fi channel movie

[–] tamarazubatuk 15 years ago

I understood the film to mean that he was "wrestling" with his own sexuality. That is the reason that he was wrestling with what appeared to be a twin of himself, only female.

[–] masuka-fan 10 years ago

That's what I got out of it, as well.

Passion is just insanity in a cashmere sweater!

[–] rooprect 10 years ago

I understood the film to mean that he was "wrestling" with his own sexuality. That is the reason that he was wrestling with what appeared to be a twin of himself, only female.

I really think you caught the gist of it. Rampo's original story relates the experience of a man wandering through a strange forest until he reaches a pool where he finds himself transformed into his female lover. Although the film is presented in a disturbing, violent way, the story has him filled with joy. At the end of the story he awakens from a dream, which is a very deliberate turn of events (not just some lame "it was all just a dream" ending. The idea is that sexuality is entirely flexible and subjective in the mind of the individual. In other words, a person's own mind (not any external forces) determines sexuality.

Rampo himself had experiences with homosexual as well as heterosexual encounters, so I'm sure a lot of the story is autobiographical. The film definitely conveys an internal struggle, or "wrestling with sexuality" like you said. But as I recall, the original story was more about self-discovery rather than conflict. Either way, it's a very cryptic piece (both the film & story), so kudos to you & anyone else who got it!

[–] jadow81 14 years ago

I guess you are fortunate to see this segment of the movie without knowing the original story.
As a Japanese Rampo fan, I have read it before the movie, so I couldn't watch it "as it was."
I envy you and other previous posters who could come up with their own interpretations.

The orginal short story is more like a prose poem.
(Rampo himself wrote it was originally a poem.
When he had to write a short story for a magazine and didn't come up with any idea,
he browsed his old notebook and found the poem he wrote years earlier.
Then he rushed to rewrite it as a short story.
So he was not particularly proud of it, but to his surprise, it was well received.)

It's a monologue of a man, depicting his weird experiences.
At one point he finds his body is turned into woman's body,
with lots of wales which look like the Mars Canal.

Near the end it's revealed it's the narrator's nightmare.
He wakes up and finds himself in the bed with his wife, then they begin to have sex.

However, readers are - at least I was - left with some doubt
if he really woke up in the reality, or it was just another nightmare,
because the narrator used strange expressions even in "reality".

IMO, the filmmakers of this segment didn't try to tell the story,
and didn't expect the viewers to "understand" it.

It seems to me they tried to represent the images they got from the original story, while refusing to explain anything.
As such, I think this segment works well.