A Snake of June (Shinya Tsukamoto, 2002)

“Go for it. Nobody can stop you.”

I'm having a hard time finding the right intro to this review of my favorite Shinya Tsukamoto movie. The first try started with a joke because, well, sex makes people nervous and they tell weak jokes. That's not right, though, A Snake of June defies that civilized timidity about sex so it seems to me starting that way dishonors the film and its brave lead performer Asuka Kurosawa . My second attempt was too severe for a film that is at times wickedly funny. This is my third try.

I shared A Snake of June with someone close to me, and she had three reactions I'll never forget: during one of the more bizarre sequences she asked “What the fuck am I looking at?”; at the fifty seven minute mark she stood up and cheered; when the closing credits began, she declared “That was fucking awesome.”

We're back to Tsukamoto's personal vision of Tokyo which now looks not merely like science fiction but a cubist's paradise. Seen at a distance or up close, it's a Tetris grid or Q-Bert mound packed tight. Everyone walks in Tokyo, you hardly ever see a car and when you do you don't see a street. The underground world of THX-1138 was more spacious than Tokyo. It's a great big art installment of a metropolis, pretty in an antiseptic way.

How do organic beings live in an antiseptic environment? Think about it. Humans are messy. Bodies are messy. We are masterpieces of bodily functions, organs that age and breathe and consume and produce, a symphony of natural actions and reactions. When your whole world is ascetic cleanliness and perfection, how does one not feel perpetually....dirty? Embarrassed? Imperfect? And while you're desperately hiding your own own, well, natural humanity, how do you not feel neurotic about how everyone else thinks of you?

Rinko and Shigehiko love each other dearly but theirs is a sexless marriage. Shigehiko ingests powders to neutralize the methane gases in his bowels, and all his passions are channeled into scrubbing the apartment. Rinko pours her heart into helping people at a suicide hotline. When she's at home, safely locked away even from her husband, she dresses as the sexual provocatrix she longs to be and gets herself off.

That is, she thinks no one can see her. She's wrong. A photographer (Shinya Tsukamoto) that Rinko saved from suicide wants to repay her, and his chosen gift is herself: for one night he's going to set her inner self free, even if it takes blackmail to get her there. “I don't want sex. I'm telling you to do what you want.”

Now...does that sound like a movie you've seen a hundred times before? Typical Hollywood sex thriller, right? Mmm, sex is baaad? Mmmkay? Stay celibate or sickos will try to kill you and everyone will think you're a horrible person, and your world will come right only once you disavow your own genitals.

No, no, no. This is the antithesis to the demonizing sex thriller. A Snake of June is that rarest of creatures, the movie that proposes sexuality as a redemptive force.

Everything about A Snake of June is unusual beginning with it's photography. It was shot on 16mm b&w stock, then blown up to 35mm on color stock, color-timed for a rich blue tint. This gives the movie an intensely textured grain that's more expressive than most anything else Tsukamoto has ever made. When Tsukamoto films his lead actress' more sensual moments, the effect is startling in its intimacy...you can feel the warmth of her flesh, she glows with a thousand tiny beads of sweat, each one a crystal the camera loves. You can smell the overripe flowers, feel the rain seep through your clothing. 

That rain is ever present – cleansing, cascading, drumming, soaking. In Tokyo Fist, Bullet ballet, and Gemini Tsukamoto had included shots of a dead animal being devoured by maggots: messy, vital, vulnerable....physical.  In AsoJ his camera finds a snail, a dichotomy with is hard-shelled living space and gooey body, beautiful in its alien way. The circles of its shell add to a visual motif of circles within the 4:3 aspect ratio and the blocks of the city. Every time a camera looks through a circular opening we witness life at its highest potency. Circular opening are at once feminine, a rebuke of the harsh straight line, and a pointer to the voyeurism that runs through AsoJ.

Long-time collaborator Chu Ishikawa's contribution can't be overestimated. He keeps the film on the right tonal track with a languid sax, jazz lifted without disguise from old burlesque clubs. It's an amused riff that lets you know nothing here is threatening.

Indeed, there are some strange turns. Following Shigehiko and Iguchi (Rinko's stalker) leads to sequences that owe to poetic or intuitive sensibilities. The director doesn't explain them to his fans, and no I don't know what the fuck we're looking at precisely but the poetic logic of the situations does suggest answers. They make a hell of an impression, too, quite alarming: at one point Iguchi leads us to an avant-garde SM club; later. He confronts Shigehiko bearing a prosthesis from Tetsuo II (and, less directly, all the Tetsuo iterations). It's wierd, it belongs to the world of dreams or fables, but it works. 

The first tour de force setpiece follows Rinko as she takes her first walk through the city, under the guidance of her mysterious blackmailer. Per his instructions she has dressed as her secret persona in a tight, short leather skirt and no panties. The camera matches her POV and her inner state – eyes down, afraid of eye contact with faces she's certain are staring at her, constricted, desperate to be unobtrusive. That's only the beginning of an astonishing sequence that sees the actress through a gauntlet of outrageous challenges to her psyche.

Which brings me to Asuka Kurosawa. I cannot praise her enough, either her acting or her beauty. Kurosawa has a commanding presence and innate intelligence. It's a role that could well have been overperformed, become comical or hysteric. In Kurosawa's hands, Rinko maintains her integrity as a persona through her entire personal arc. Over the course of the movie Kurosawa is asked to expose body and soul to a most invasive degree. Simply put, we believe the story because we never for a moment disbelieve that Rinko is a real person with real feelings. Kurosawa owns this movie. So far this is one of only three films of hers I've seen, the others being Cold Fish (Sion Sono, 2010) and Himizu (Sion Sono, 2011). In Cold Fish she plays a psychopath with delicious glee, as different from Rinko as one could get, and equally mesmerizing. See the two together and you'll never doubt her star power.

Over my reviews of Shinya Tsukamoto's directorial works I've neglected to mention his acting, and now's a good place to redress that. His early roles in Tetsuos I and II are splashy but aren't deep enough to merit a closer look. On the other hand, the older Tsukamoto in later works stands out as a sympathetic everyman. His quiet demeanor and forlorn, hurt eyes provide a sturdy foundation for Tokyo Fist and Bullet Ballet. In AsoJ he moves to the side for his lead actress, yet Iguchi is no less moving than she is. The stalker is more sympathetic than Rinko's beloved Shigehiko (Yûji Kôtari). He's a plain-looking man. Stocky, unmuscular, bald, he's everything the Hollywood romantic type isn't. Shigehiko is no villain – there are no villains in AsoJ – rather he's in the same place that Rinko is: paralizingly embarrassed at his own body. The difference is that if Shigehiko cannot overcome his fear, it's Rinko who will pay dearly for it.

There is a scene at the end of the second act that is the most erotically charged thing I've ever seen in a movie, and the most rewarding...transgressive, transcendent, triumphant..and just damn sexy as hell. It's tempting to say that A Snake of June is not for those uncomfortable with sex, but the opposite is true: it's exactly those people who should be seeing this movie. That's the whole premise and plot! However discomfiting the premise sounds, a deep empathy emerges for these people. They're human beings, full of potential in their physical existence but precarious of ego. Ultimately it isn't sex alone that carries the day but compassion and love. The lesson is that the three together are indestructible and must be respected as such.

If it were the policy to play movies instead of music at funerals, A Snake of June would be playing at mine. It is fucking awesome.