Visitor Q
Encyclopedia
is a controversial 2001
film
directed by Japanese
director
Takashi Miike
. It was filmed as the sixth and final part of the Love Cinema series consisting of six straight-to-video
releases by independent film
makers via a brief but exclusive run at the minuscule Shimokitazawa
cinema in Tokyo
. The six films were conceived as low budget exercises to explore the benefits afforded by the low-cost Digital Video
medium such as the increased mobility of film and the low-lighting conditions available to the filmmakers.
Visitor Q often replicates the style of documentary
footage and home movies, which invokes a sense of realism
that contradicts the film’s more bizarre elements and black comedy.
Teorema, in which a strange visitor to a wealthy family seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter, and finally the father, before leaving a few days after, subsequently changing their lives.
The film starts off with a question: "Have you ever done it with your Dad?"; the viewer then sees Miki Yamazaki, a young prostitute, trying to persuade her father, Kiyoshi, into having sex with her. Her father is videotaping the scene for a documentary he is preparing on Japanese youths. Once it appears the father is letting himself be persuaded, she tells him the price (50,000 Yen). They have sex, the father ejaculates after a very short time and the disappointed daughter informs him it will be 100,000 Yen now, because of this.
The father then realizes the camera has been on all along.
In the next scene, called "Have you ever been hit on the head?", a man (the visitor) hits the father over the head with a rock for no apparent reason.
The film then moves on to a scene titled "Have you ever hit your mom?" In this scene, the mother is working on a jigsaw puzzle, and her hands are shown to have red marks, showing where she was beaten. Her young son, Takuya, comes in and starts throwing things at the already broken apartment walls because he is unhappy with the toothbrush his mother bought him. He then hits his mother with a rug beating stick. Later, bullies from the son's school come to the front of the house and shoot fireworks
through the son's bedroom window. The mother is later seen injecting heroin. It does not seem to have a huge effect on her, though, suggesting she is a regular user.
On his way back from work, the father is yet again hit on the head by the same man. They both arrive at the father's home and the mother serves them dinner. The son comes down while they are eating and starts beating the mother again. This does not surprise or bother the father, or the visitor. Later, the father is seen watching one of his old tapes, and it turns out that he was raped by a group of teenagers.
The next day, the father is on his way to work when he sees his son being beaten and robbed by some children from school. He films it from a distance and appears very pleased with the footage.
The mother, meanwhile, is getting ready for work. The viewer discovers her body is covered in marks from where the son has hurt her. She also has a limp.
The father meets with a female co-worker who believes he is going too far in his work. The mother, working as a prostitute, is whipping a customer with a belt (at his request). She then goes to buy some drugs.
When she gets home, she discovers the pieces from her jigsaw have been arranged so as to form a trail through the house and ending at a photograph of her daughter. The visitor is at home and he introduces her to lactation sex (squeezing her nipples to make her lactate
, a recurring theme in this film). The son sees this while hiding behind the door.
At dinner, the mother is much happier than usual, and has prepared a nice meal. The son, however, is sullen and throws a bowl of hot soup at her face. The wife—instead of being downtrodden, as usual—comes back with a carving knife and throws it at the head of her son, who dodges just in time. Everyone is very pleased, except the son. However, the father becomes exhilarated when the schoolchildren start attacking his house with fireworks again, which he videotapes. Meanwhile, the mother and the visitor continue to eat peacefully.
Next day, the son is bullied again. The father is taping his son from his car with the visitor and his female co-worker. The co-worker gets fed up with the father and tries to leave. The father follows her on foot and sexually assaults her while the visitor, emotionally neutral, tapes the scene. The father unintentionally chokes his victim to death.
He takes her body back home and puts her in the greenhouse. The visitor is still taping, at the father's instruction. The father sends the visitor to get garbage bags from the mother. But when the visitor asks her for them she takes her clothes off and reveals she is dressed in a garbage bag. She then makes herself lactate and produces a rain of human milk that covers the floor while the visitor watches from underneath an umbrella.
During this time, the husband is drawing on the woman’s body to mark the best places to cut it up so the smaller pieces will fit in the bags. He tapes this for his documentary. Becoming aroused, the father has sex with the dead body. He then notices she is getting wet and is amazed that this is possible for a dead woman. When he brings his hand up, however, it is covered in feces. He then discovers that his penis is stuck inside the corpse due to Rigor mortis
. The mother comes out to help and rushes to the shop to buy lots of oils and vinegar. She empties the bottles into the bath with her husband and the corpse. This does not help, though, so she gives him a shot of heroin, which frees him. They are both exhilarated.
The visitor has filmed the whole scene.
Later on, the couple is having fun dismembering the female co-worker's corpse when the son turns up in the front yard with the same children beating him. The parents rush out and with great pleasure they finally kill all the bullies using the axes and knives they were using to cut the co-worker's body to pieces. Later, their son is shown lying on the floor in the puddle of maternal milk. He thanks the visitor for the chaos he brought to their family which helped them become closer than ever.
The visitor leaves the family. Afterwards, finding the prostitute daughter on the street, he hits her in the face with a rock. Beaten and bleeding, she comes back home to the family and finds the father suckling on the mother's breast in the garden. The final shot of the movie is of the daughter suckling on her mother's other breast, symbolizing the return of family order. All scars on the mother have disappeared, as have those on the daughter, shown seconds before (caused by being hit with the rock), suggesting a symbolically healed family.
2001 in film
The year 2001 in film involved some significant events, including the first of the Harry Potter series and also the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
film
Cinema of Japan
The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...
directed by Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike
is a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions...
. It was filmed as the sixth and final part of the Love Cinema series consisting of six straight-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
releases by independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
makers via a brief but exclusive run at the minuscule Shimokitazawa
Shimo-Kitazawa Station
Shimo-Kitazawa Station is an interchange station on the Odakyu Odawara and the Keiō Inokashira lines located in Tokyo's Setagaya ward. The Odakyu section was opened on April 1, 1927, and the Keio section on August 1, 1933....
cinema in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. The six films were conceived as low budget exercises to explore the benefits afforded by the low-cost Digital Video
Digital video
Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by using a digital rather than an analog video signal.The terms camera, video camera, and camcorder are used interchangeably in this article.- History :...
medium such as the increased mobility of film and the low-lighting conditions available to the filmmakers.
Visitor Q often replicates the style of documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
footage and home movies, which invokes a sense of realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
that contradicts the film’s more bizarre elements and black comedy.
Plot
The film's plot is often compared to Pier Paolo Pasolini'sPier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
Teorema, in which a strange visitor to a wealthy family seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter, and finally the father, before leaving a few days after, subsequently changing their lives.
The film starts off with a question: "Have you ever done it with your Dad?"; the viewer then sees Miki Yamazaki, a young prostitute, trying to persuade her father, Kiyoshi, into having sex with her. Her father is videotaping the scene for a documentary he is preparing on Japanese youths. Once it appears the father is letting himself be persuaded, she tells him the price (50,000 Yen). They have sex, the father ejaculates after a very short time and the disappointed daughter informs him it will be 100,000 Yen now, because of this.
The father then realizes the camera has been on all along.
In the next scene, called "Have you ever been hit on the head?", a man (the visitor) hits the father over the head with a rock for no apparent reason.
The film then moves on to a scene titled "Have you ever hit your mom?" In this scene, the mother is working on a jigsaw puzzle, and her hands are shown to have red marks, showing where she was beaten. Her young son, Takuya, comes in and starts throwing things at the already broken apartment walls because he is unhappy with the toothbrush his mother bought him. He then hits his mother with a rug beating stick. Later, bullies from the son's school come to the front of the house and shoot fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
through the son's bedroom window. The mother is later seen injecting heroin. It does not seem to have a huge effect on her, though, suggesting she is a regular user.
On his way back from work, the father is yet again hit on the head by the same man. They both arrive at the father's home and the mother serves them dinner. The son comes down while they are eating and starts beating the mother again. This does not surprise or bother the father, or the visitor. Later, the father is seen watching one of his old tapes, and it turns out that he was raped by a group of teenagers.
The next day, the father is on his way to work when he sees his son being beaten and robbed by some children from school. He films it from a distance and appears very pleased with the footage.
The mother, meanwhile, is getting ready for work. The viewer discovers her body is covered in marks from where the son has hurt her. She also has a limp.
The father meets with a female co-worker who believes he is going too far in his work. The mother, working as a prostitute, is whipping a customer with a belt (at his request). She then goes to buy some drugs.
When she gets home, she discovers the pieces from her jigsaw have been arranged so as to form a trail through the house and ending at a photograph of her daughter. The visitor is at home and he introduces her to lactation sex (squeezing her nipples to make her lactate
Lactation
Lactation describes the secretion of milk from the mammary glands and the period of time that a mother lactates to feed her young. The process occurs in all female mammals, however it predates mammals. In humans the process of feeding milk is called breastfeeding or nursing...
, a recurring theme in this film). The son sees this while hiding behind the door.
At dinner, the mother is much happier than usual, and has prepared a nice meal. The son, however, is sullen and throws a bowl of hot soup at her face. The wife—instead of being downtrodden, as usual—comes back with a carving knife and throws it at the head of her son, who dodges just in time. Everyone is very pleased, except the son. However, the father becomes exhilarated when the schoolchildren start attacking his house with fireworks again, which he videotapes. Meanwhile, the mother and the visitor continue to eat peacefully.
Next day, the son is bullied again. The father is taping his son from his car with the visitor and his female co-worker. The co-worker gets fed up with the father and tries to leave. The father follows her on foot and sexually assaults her while the visitor, emotionally neutral, tapes the scene. The father unintentionally chokes his victim to death.
He takes her body back home and puts her in the greenhouse. The visitor is still taping, at the father's instruction. The father sends the visitor to get garbage bags from the mother. But when the visitor asks her for them she takes her clothes off and reveals she is dressed in a garbage bag. She then makes herself lactate and produces a rain of human milk that covers the floor while the visitor watches from underneath an umbrella.
During this time, the husband is drawing on the woman’s body to mark the best places to cut it up so the smaller pieces will fit in the bags. He tapes this for his documentary. Becoming aroused, the father has sex with the dead body. He then notices she is getting wet and is amazed that this is possible for a dead woman. When he brings his hand up, however, it is covered in feces. He then discovers that his penis is stuck inside the corpse due to Rigor mortis
Rigor mortis
Rigor mortis is one of the recognizable signs of death that is caused by a chemical change in the muscles after death, causing the limbs of the corpse to become stiff and difficult to move or manipulate...
. The mother comes out to help and rushes to the shop to buy lots of oils and vinegar. She empties the bottles into the bath with her husband and the corpse. This does not help, though, so she gives him a shot of heroin, which frees him. They are both exhilarated.
The visitor has filmed the whole scene.
Later on, the couple is having fun dismembering the female co-worker's corpse when the son turns up in the front yard with the same children beating him. The parents rush out and with great pleasure they finally kill all the bullies using the axes and knives they were using to cut the co-worker's body to pieces. Later, their son is shown lying on the floor in the puddle of maternal milk. He thanks the visitor for the chaos he brought to their family which helped them become closer than ever.
The visitor leaves the family. Afterwards, finding the prostitute daughter on the street, he hits her in the face with a rock. Beaten and bleeding, she comes back home to the family and finds the father suckling on the mother's breast in the garden. The final shot of the movie is of the daughter suckling on her mother's other breast, symbolizing the return of family order. All scars on the mother have disappeared, as have those on the daughter, shown seconds before (caused by being hit with the rock), suggesting a symbolically healed family.
Cast
- Kenichi Endo as Kiyoshi Yamazaki, the father
- Shungicu UchidaShungicu Uchida, known by the pen name , is a Japanese manga artist, novelist, essayist, actress, and singer.- Biography :She was born August 7, 1959 in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. Her father left the family when she and her younger sister were in primary school. Her mother was a dance teacher and bar...
as Keiko Yamazaki, the mother - FujikoFujiko (actress), real name or , born 5 March 1980, is Japanese actress and model.- Selected filmography :* MPD Psycho * Visitor Q * Strange Circus * Manji * Tokyo Daigaku Monogatari - External links :*...
as Miki Yamazaki, the daughter - Jun Mutō as Takuya Yamazaki, the son
- Kazushi Watanabe as The Visitor
- Shōko Nakahara as Asako Murata
External links
Visitor Q at the Japanese Movie Database- Visitor Q Review @ Revolving Video