Lust, fascination, fear, desperation, and suffering are etched into every frame of this lush, transcendent proto-Nikkatsu Roman sexploitation flick. Simply put, it’s mountaintop melodrama.

This film only had 10 days of pre-production. That’s insane. Production designer Takeo Kimura’s sets are fantastic and the movie is gorgeous from root to fruit. The world portrayed is theatrically rich, realistically populated, luridly humid, and desperately tumultuous. Master formalist Seijun Suzuki pivots from political rage to comedy to horror to titillation to gaudiness to high energy good vibes, yet somehow keeps complete tonal consistency.

He’s a cinema sorcerer.

Agitprop in service to the animal mind.

Nothing is more shallow and more defining than our kink. Our kink is whipped up by the surface interface with our culture, our personal history, our considered identity; but below the surface the animal mind churns the kink, gives it ID weight and biological force. You cannot intellectualize your kink. You cannot outthink your kink. Blessed are those whose kink is deemed “normative” by its sheer averageness. Damned are those whose kink brings themselves or someone else authentic harm.

And what is harm? Well, harm is in the eye of the kink.

Max von Sydow was twenty-seven years old when he starred in one of the greatest films ever made. He died today. He was ninety. This is a movie about death.

My wife found out the lump on her throat was benign today and then I watched this movie for the first time in probably twenty years while waiting for her to come home from work so I could give her a kiss. This is a movie about life.

Death cheats at chess. Life cheats at death.

The Max von Sydow project starts now.