62/100

May have to reassess Pi, which I quite liked at the time, after seeing just how much of its look and feel Aronofsky swiped from this singularly batshit effort. Then again, I may find that I still slightly prefer Pi, which doesn't metamorphose from manic subjectivity into a sort of proto-Transformers showdown—the latter half of Tetsuo gets increasingly silly, with a detectable shift in tone right around the time that the Iron Man's phone rings and he clumsily answers it with his giant appendages, carefully holding it to the Cubist landscape that now passes for his face. Which is not to say that the film is ever serious, exactly, but the nightmarish sensibility that dominates early on (roughly through…

Wow, now this is cinema at its purest. Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a reminder of what cinema can be when not bound by rules. It's an achievement in filmmaking, and once again it is the low-budget films that impressive me with it's technical brilliance and originality.

The fast paced editing is magnificent, transferring the stressful nature of the transformation to the audience in a harrowing and uncomfortable way. The sound design is as metallic as the film itself, filled with rhythmic clunking sounds, buzzing and electronic noise. The cinematography is fantastic, all in contrastful black and white, and experimenting with angles and different techniques which really makes for an uncomfortable watch. On top of it all the narrative is…

I remember the video of Tetsuo always catching my eye as I perused the shelves of my local HMV, in the early 1990s. I was intrigued by it, but never enough to part with actual cash for it. So, here I am, a hundred years later, and I've finally watched it for the first time.
It's a pity I never got to see back then, as it would undoubtedly have blown my mind all the more - especially with its superb metal-banging, industrial soundtrack, which is like a lot of the stuff I was listening to at that time.

On the new Blu-ray edition, Tetsuo: the Iron Man is not clean and pristine. The print is grainy and scratchy, which…

Tetsuo - "Iron Husband, Philosophical Man"

Cyberpunk surrealism at its finest. This story of a man transforming into a mechanical juggernaut is freeform enough to take on multiple meanings to the viewer: post-industrial commentary, the implications of rapid technological change, repressed homoeroticism, and the deterioration of the human condition are all present in the narrative. While Lynch and Cronenberg are the two comparisons that come most readily to mind, I think the stop motion surrealism of Jan Švankmajer and the techno-sexualization of H.R. Giger are noteworthy reference points as well.

The real gem here is the directorial style. Tsukamoto takes us through a cavalcade of cinematic perspectives - a miniaturized film school in seventy minutes. It's a spliced together fusion…

Wow, now this is cinema at its purest. Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a reminder of what cinema can be when not bound by rules. It's an achievement in filmmaking, and once again it is the low-budget films that impressive me with it's technical brilliance and originality.

The fast paced editing is magnificent, transferring the stressful nature of the transformation to the audience in a harrowing and uncomfortable way. The sound design is as metallic as the film itself, filled with rhythmic clunking sounds, buzzing and electronic noise. The cinematography is fantastic, all in contrastful black and white, and experimenting with angles and different techniques which really makes for an uncomfortable watch. On top of it all the narrative is…

Here's something you don't see every day, an experimental Japanese film that runs just over an hour and features a man gradually fusing with various metal components, including at one point a giant drill in.....well, you can fill in the blank for yourself. It owes a visual debt to David Lynch's Eraserhead, with its stark black-and-white imagery and industrial soundscape. Those who have seen Darren Aronofsky's Pi also would have a good idea of what to expect here, both visually and tonally. Still, Tetsuo: The Iron Man is kind of in a class by itself. There's not much of a narrative here, and to be honest the way everything unfolds it ends up making very little sense. I realized very…

This is the first of the famous Tetsuo Trilogy, which holds a special place in the heart of every extreme movie fan.

Each time I watch this movie, I think it means something else. Well, except for the first time. The first time I was so assaulted by the imagery and the sounds that it actually stopped me from thinking. And that is pretty rare.

Perhaps it's a savage satire on humanity's dependence on industrialization.

Perhaps it's a nightmarish vision of a man terrified of women, who desperately tries to deny being gay.

Perhaps it's a brutal lesson on the rusted dreams of the business life, and how they destroy one's appreciation of beauty and nature.

I don't know. All…