I think many (most?) viewers would interpret Strange Circus as a film about pedophilia, but the director says in an interview that it "is really not a pedophilia film at all". Well that would have been a bit too easy (and cheap), wouldn't it? I have to admit that after one viewing I don't yet have a good alternative theory as to what the film is about.
The interview: http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/phile/essays/sion_sono/
I'll be back. :-)
Well, I never thought of it as a movie about Pedophilia. It's obvious there is the idea in it, as the whole movie revolves around Gozo raping Mitsuko, but Gozo is not a pedophile in the sense that he hunts down just young girls. I would definitely say this is a movie about the trauma caused by a father raping his daughter, but not about Pedophilia exactly.
shareMy interpretation was that by pedophilia he meant the father abusing the daughter. So the whole child abuse and what follows it would stand for something altogether different, ie. it's an allegory. It wouldn't perhaps be as interesting if it was just about the abuse and the daughter's subsequent trauma. But I'm yet to watch the film again.
shareYou're absolutely correct, mikpii. The child abuse is merely another angle from which Sion Sono explores his true theme: identity in Japanese society. This film, as well as Suicide Club and Noriko's Dinner Table, all examine what Sono sees as a breakdown of the traditional Japanese identity where the group is more important the the individual. In Strange Circus, the decadent western lifestyle (symbolized by the very un-Japanese house the family lives in, and hyperbolized by the horrifically dysfunctional home life) cuts them off from the group identity. Left to rely on their self-identities, they struggle tragically.
well said, thanks for sharing this insight.
shareI'd argue the directors comments were directed towards those who thought paedophilia was the only theme of the film. I mean it obviously contains paedophilic elements, but I could see why he wouldn't want them to overshadow the fact that the incestuous nature of the abuse was the most important factor in regards to the characters and their development.
shareOften incest isn't a matter of pedophilia at all, but of violence and control, just like other forms of rape. The fact that the man also rapes his wife seems to show the character as craving dominance, not sex with a young girl.
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If you ask people in rock bands what kind of music they play, they often act as though it's a terribly difficult, somewhat offensive question. They hem and haw and cite obscure influences.The difference is that while there might be some artistic sensitivity involved that would cause a group to resent being pigeonholed in one genre or sub-genre or another, there's really no stigma attached to a rock band being labeled a rock band. And in truth there might actually might be some legitimate artistic basis upon which to reject being categorized/labeled as one thing or another.
A lot of artists are like that. They don't want to be pinned down, especially by something as banal and obvious as "rock band" or "pedophilia film".
But denials don't change facts. Most of rock bands really are just rock bands, and this really is a film about pedophilia (father-daughter incest, to be more specific).
And in truth there might actually might be some legitimate artistic basis upon which to reject being categorized/labeled as one thing or another.
AND...it's central focus is incest/pedophilia. So please...don't even go there.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
The central focus is actually the strange circus itself, as it represents the metaphysical location that all of the film's characters reside in, or the subjective non-physical location of consciousness.
The central focus of the circus seems to be the death of Mitsuko at first, as you'll recall the young Mitsuko volunteers to be decapitated by the guillotine, but then the narrative progresses and we understand the metaphor the guillotine is meant to represent: the death of identity onset by Mitsuko's father raping her, then the displacement of identity onto her mother (which is visually portrayed as becoming her mother when Gozo rapes her and imagining that she enjoys it).
And this isn't the true meaning of the metaphor since it undergoes permutations until the very end. Mitsuko is no longer inside the guillotine at the film's end (she's applauding alongside Yuji), so this metaphor is actually modulated on top of the already-existing metaphors that lay beneath it.
Even the question of the authenticity of the rape story (because it also occupies the artistic space as a story in Taeko's novel) is questioned and undermined as a fiction. Is it something that actually happened or is it something that Taeko made up? Sono isn't interested in answering this question.
If this was a film merely about pedophilia or incest there's no way that it would freely reach into such obscure, poetic grounds with the Grand Guignol style theatre of the absurd in the foreground serving as a ceremony or ritual.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
Blah blah blah. Mental masturbation; dancing on the head of a pin. Just stop it. It's silly, really.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
There's no way that I was that far off the mark. Maybe we saw two different films? Answer this, what do you think was the purpose in staging the story inside of a "strange circus"? And what do you think of the guillotine?
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
Answer this: are you one of those people who think that the laws against pedophilia are too stringent and oppressive?
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
Not at all. The laws only apply after the crime has been committed, so I think they're mostly useless. Since pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder, I think more emphasis should be placed on mandatory prevention programs that can assess and possibly treat pedophilia early on. It's more effective to stamp out any unhealthy sexual urges before they have a chance to manifest themselves than it is to put a band-aid on after all the damage is done. It makes no sense to lock these people up when they won't learn a single thing from their punishment.
I've answered your question, so answer mine now.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
It makes no sense to lock these people up when they won't learn a single thing from their punishment.I see. So it makes more sense to NOT lock them up so they can continue to harm more children. Got it.
I'm starting to think that you have a reading comprehension problem. I said the emphasis should be on the prevention, which in no way implies that people shouldn't be locked up for their crimes. The point is that we should focus on preventing the crime to begin with so that no one gets harmed. Just quit stalling and answer the questions already.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
You make me laugh. You obviously love to debate using philosophy as your foundation. The thing is...you are the epitome of everything that's wrong with philosophical arguments. You can spin so many levels that you end up obscuring the forest for the trees. The central character in this film is a 12 year old victim of both incest and pedophilia. It's like 1+1. Yet somehow, in your deranged convolutions, you've obscured something so fundamental and so basic. It's amazing. And comical. And quite sad. Regardless of what ELSE this film is about, there's simply no logical, sane way to ever state it's NOT about incest/pedophilia and the ravages it causes. You're like the focus of Yuji's character's rage when he rebuffs all of his mother's convoluted thinking. He takes every one of her twisted arguments and destroys it with the truth. You have no truth; only twisted, warped philosophical arguments. So in truth, there's noting to "answer" from what you've asked, because you've asked nothing of substance to begin with.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
That's an elaborate deflection. And it's disappointing that you can't answer such a simple question. If everything I've said is "only twisted, warped philosophical arguments" (whatever that's supposed to mean anyway), then what's the harm in telling me your opinion on why Sono set the story within the strange circus? If you can manage to answer this question convincingly it would actually prove your point. But we all know that you can't answer this question, not because it has no substance, because if you did you would have to admit that this isn't a conventional film at all and it definitely doesn't play by conventional rules.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
You're nothing but a pseudo-intellectual. Not intelligent; just pseudo-intellectual. I happened to enjoy the film immensely. I enjoyed the surrealistic feel to it, especially for a Japanese film. I enjoyed the fact that Sono used the circus as the vehicle through which to bring out the lethality of the incest/pedophile theme. (Right up to the end, where I feel he fell into the pit of more traditional gender roles/misogyny.) By the same token, I feel the story falls far short of a true masterpiece like "A Clockwork Orange" because the power of its message gets lost/diluted at the end.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
I never asked you whether you enjoyed the strange circus setting, I'm asking you why you think the story takes place within the strange circus as a form of entertainment to the audience. If it was merely a vehicle for the incest theme then why is Mitsuko no longer inside the guillotine at the end of the film? If you feel the "message" of the film is lost or diluted at this point (which isn't the case when seen under my interpretation), doesn't this suggest that you never knew the message to begin with? The ending is simply a culmination of all the themes that came before it, so any dissatisfaction with the ending stems from the fact that you were unable to pick up on most of them and focused on only one.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
According to your interpretation of the film, nothing more (and of course there's the requisite IMDb "if you don't agree with my interpretation you obviously didn't "get it" line.) WHATEVER Sono intended as far as the symbolism and/or meaning and/or choice to use the circus as the means through which to deliver his message, the fact that he chose to use a 12 year old pedophile-incest as his central character removes from him the option to deny that this film is fundamentally about pedophile-incest. Why you choose to do cartwheels around that most basic reality is apparently known only by you. But enjoy whatever works for you.
"Love isn't what you say or how you feel, it's what you DO". (The Last Kiss)
It's not just my interpretation of the film, Sono also confirms much of what I've said in interviews. It's all there in the film, it's not like I made any of it up. It's funny how you keep saying this about a central character, then confuse that as being synonymous with the central theme, when the Mitsuko story at the beginning of the film lasts for 30 minutes at most before it shifts into the Taeko story for essentially the rest of the film. In order to be a central character you have to be present throughout the film, and the only character that qualifies is obviously Sayuri/Taeko. It's as if you choose to see only a fragment of what the film represents, only the part that you want it to mean because it's the only part that makes sense to you, but instead of seeing mythic shapes in the clouds I actually see what's there and what it was intended for. The mind can create some powerful illusions, you'll believe whatever you want despite all of the contrary evidence.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
Jesus christ man, at what point do you realize you are arguing with a zealot troll who doesn't give a damn about the movie and only wants to rail on pedophilia and incest? Their victimhood fairly drips from their words. Don't encourage self righteousness. You are dealing with Fred Phelps doing film commentary.
shareI honestly couldn't tell, even though it should have been fairly obvious. At least it was somewhat entertaining!
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream
Yeah thats actually why I had to turn it off about half way through. I made a joke about Mackenzie Phillips early on in the film...little did I know that it would be true.
shareI'm really surprised someone would think it's all about pedophilia... I was actually stunned how cleverly they avoided any hints of sex scenes with the child. 'I became my mother' conclusion was brilliant .
Too weird to live, to rare to die!
This really wasn't pedophilia. It was incestuous torture and abuse. The father saw his daughter as an adult woman when he raped her.
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Many people throw around the term "pedophile" without any knowledge of what the word means, or even how to pronounce it.
I'm sure you're one of those people.