Uzumaki (film)
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese horror film directed by Higuchinsky. Uzumaki, released in 2000, is based on Junji Ito
's episodic manga
of the same name
.
The plot concerns a town infected with malevolent spirals. This abstract concept manifests in grotesque ways, such as a teenager's long hair beginning to curl and take over her mind, or a corpse wound around itself.
Among many bizarre features of the film is a heavy treatment with green colour filters, aping the style of the colour plates in the manga, and the fact that the trailer for the film is a pastiche
of Jean-Luc Godard
's seminal trailer for À bout de souffle (1960).
The movie covers some of the notable stories from the manga, with varying degrees of faithfulness. The movie and the manga have different endings because the movie was filmed before the manga had finished.
Its theme song was "Raven" by the band Do As Infinity
, which was on their "Yesterday & Today" single.
Also in 2000, Higuchinsky adapted Junji's Nagai Yume
("Long Dream") for Japanese television.
soup when he runs out of spiral patterned Kamaboko
. He then becomes one with Uzumaki when he decides to crawl into a washing machine to get a 'point-of-view' shot for his film.
It is not long before the entire town is infected by the otherworldly whirls. Inspector Tamura, a police officer, is intrigued by Shuichi's dad's suicide and becomes obsessed with the case. Meanwhile, Kirie's high school is populated by a host of twitching teachers, preening pretty girls, and the slimy Katayama, who begins to walk at a snail's pace and only comes to school when it rains. Making matters worse, the student body is starting to sprout shells, drink water in copious amounts, and crawl on the walls of the school. Sekino, Kirie's classmate, begins to grow her hair in medusa-like curls that eventually take over not only her mind but the minds of all the girls in the school (save for Kirie). Meanwhile, in the hospital, Shuichi's mother, who was hospitalized after her husband's death, cuts off her hair and fingertips in order to get rid of anything spiral-shaped on her body, and grows so afraid of spirals that Shuichi is forced to tell the hospital to eliminate anything spiral-shaped so his mother may not encounter them (even going so far as to throwing away the cakes that Kirie had brought for her mother, since the frosting on the cakes were like whirls). Eventually Shuichi's mother succumbs to her phobia and kills herself when a millipede tries to crawl into her ear to inhabit her cochlea
and causes her to hallucinate about her husband, who tells her that "there's another vortex in the deepest part of your ear". It is not long before even the sky itself is cursed, with whirl-like clouds and the eerily smoky, ghost-like faces of the victims who perished in the grip of Uzumaki appearing during funerals.
Soon everyone in Kurouzu has been caught in the curse of the vortex—Kirie's dad, who takes a drill to his eye after obsessively creating spiral shaped ceramics; the reporter who gives a special report on the horrors of the town and her crew, all of whom lose themselves in a tunnel only for their corpses to be found as snail-people; Sekino, whose body has been devoured by the snake-like curls; Kirie's stalker, who throws himself in front of Inspector Tamura's car and is twisted around the axle, the impact by Tamura's head leaving a spiral crack in the windshield; a police officer, who while he was admiring the spiral rifling in the barrel of his gun, shot himself in the eye, leaving a spiral hole in his head; and even Shuichi himself, whose body twists into a spiral and becomes possessed by it. Only Kirie is left in the cursed town of Kurouzu, and in the end her final fate is whether or not she lives or dies. However, it can also be argued that Kirie is trapped in the spiral curse and has to relive every moment of the movie. This is supported by the evidence in the opening and the ending where Kirie explains what happens in the town and by the constant emphasis of the movie that the "Spiral" is everlasting.
Junji Ito
is a Japanese horror manga artist best known for his series of short stories about Tomie, an immortal girl who drives her stricken admirers to madness, and Uzumaki, a three-volume series about a town obsessed with spirals.-Biography:...
's episodic manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
of the same name
Uzumaki
is a horror manga written and Illustrated by Junji Ito, and serialized in Shogakukan's Big Comic Spirits.The story concerns the inhabitants of the small Japanese town of Kurôzu-cho as they become obsessed by the occurrences of natural and artificial spirals around them...
.
The plot concerns a town infected with malevolent spirals. This abstract concept manifests in grotesque ways, such as a teenager's long hair beginning to curl and take over her mind, or a corpse wound around itself.
Among many bizarre features of the film is a heavy treatment with green colour filters, aping the style of the colour plates in the manga, and the fact that the trailer for the film is a pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
's seminal trailer for À bout de souffle (1960).
The movie covers some of the notable stories from the manga, with varying degrees of faithfulness. The movie and the manga have different endings because the movie was filmed before the manga had finished.
Its theme song was "Raven" by the band Do As Infinity
Do As Infinity
Do As Infinity is a Japanese pop and rock band that formed in 1999 with three members: vocalist Tomiko Van, guitarist Ryo Owatari, and guitarist and composer Dai Nagao. The band's name is sometimes abbreviated as D.A.I., alluding to the fact that Do As Infinity was named after Dai Nagao...
, which was on their "Yesterday & Today" single.
Also in 2000, Higuchinsky adapted Junji's Nagai Yume
Nagai yume
is a one-hour Japanese television drama broadcast in 2000, based upon a manga by Junji Ito, and directed by Higuchinsky, whose film adaptation of Ito's Uzumaki had been released earlier the same year.-Plot:...
("Long Dream") for Japanese television.
Plot
High school student Kirie's first glimpse that something is awry in the small town of Kurouzu comes when the father of her boyfriend (Shuichi) begins to film the corkscrew patterns on a snail; he is also in the process of making a video scrap book filled with the images of anything that has a spiral or vortex shape to it. His weird obsession threatens to go out of control. He proclaims that a spiral is the highest form of art and frantically creates whirlpools in his misoMiso
is a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting rice, barley and/or soybeans, with salt and the fungus , the most typical miso being made with soy. The result is a thick paste used for sauces and spreads, pickling vegetables or meats, and mixing with dashi soup stock to serve as miso...
soup when he runs out of spiral patterned Kamaboko
Kamaboko
is a type of cured surimi, a Japanese processed seafood product, in which various white fish are pureed, combined with additives such as MSG, formed into distinctive loaves, and then steamed until fully cooked and firm. The steamed loaves are then sliced and served unheated with various dipping...
. He then becomes one with Uzumaki when he decides to crawl into a washing machine to get a 'point-of-view' shot for his film.
It is not long before the entire town is infected by the otherworldly whirls. Inspector Tamura, a police officer, is intrigued by Shuichi's dad's suicide and becomes obsessed with the case. Meanwhile, Kirie's high school is populated by a host of twitching teachers, preening pretty girls, and the slimy Katayama, who begins to walk at a snail's pace and only comes to school when it rains. Making matters worse, the student body is starting to sprout shells, drink water in copious amounts, and crawl on the walls of the school. Sekino, Kirie's classmate, begins to grow her hair in medusa-like curls that eventually take over not only her mind but the minds of all the girls in the school (save for Kirie). Meanwhile, in the hospital, Shuichi's mother, who was hospitalized after her husband's death, cuts off her hair and fingertips in order to get rid of anything spiral-shaped on her body, and grows so afraid of spirals that Shuichi is forced to tell the hospital to eliminate anything spiral-shaped so his mother may not encounter them (even going so far as to throwing away the cakes that Kirie had brought for her mother, since the frosting on the cakes were like whirls). Eventually Shuichi's mother succumbs to her phobia and kills herself when a millipede tries to crawl into her ear to inhabit her cochlea
Cochlea
The cochlea is the auditory portion of the inner ear. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, making 2.5 turns around its axis, the modiolus....
and causes her to hallucinate about her husband, who tells her that "there's another vortex in the deepest part of your ear". It is not long before even the sky itself is cursed, with whirl-like clouds and the eerily smoky, ghost-like faces of the victims who perished in the grip of Uzumaki appearing during funerals.
Soon everyone in Kurouzu has been caught in the curse of the vortex—Kirie's dad, who takes a drill to his eye after obsessively creating spiral shaped ceramics; the reporter who gives a special report on the horrors of the town and her crew, all of whom lose themselves in a tunnel only for their corpses to be found as snail-people; Sekino, whose body has been devoured by the snake-like curls; Kirie's stalker, who throws himself in front of Inspector Tamura's car and is twisted around the axle, the impact by Tamura's head leaving a spiral crack in the windshield; a police officer, who while he was admiring the spiral rifling in the barrel of his gun, shot himself in the eye, leaving a spiral hole in his head; and even Shuichi himself, whose body twists into a spiral and becomes possessed by it. Only Kirie is left in the cursed town of Kurouzu, and in the end her final fate is whether or not she lives or dies. However, it can also be argued that Kirie is trapped in the spiral curse and has to relive every moment of the movie. This is supported by the evidence in the opening and the ending where Kirie explains what happens in the town and by the constant emphasis of the movie that the "Spiral" is everlasting.
External links
- Uzumaki at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...