10/26/20 - Violence Voyager (2019) - 5+/6-/10
A truly bizarre spectacle that defies explanation, only demanding expiration. Done in a unique “geki mation” paper cutout style, we stutter step down the path of the bizarre and disgusting. Everything is off kilter and hard to decipher. There is nothing quite normal about even the mundane; everything being slightly awry or twisted. Of course, that isn’t even getting into the ineffable aliens/mutations/experimentations or the tangible purpose of it all. What is the meaning of it all? To push you slightly out of phase with normalcy and build a playground of disturbia in that hazy in-between. It slimily succeeds.
The styling is plainly simplistic, while at the same time being grudgingly time-intensive and deeply involved. The effect sometimes works wonders, and at others leaves it lagging undynamic. There is an uncanny cross pollination of the flat paper and 3D liquid interactions. It somehow made it more visceral and jarring. It also added to the low-fi/childlike experience.
For all its oddly alluring and Ito-esque vulgarities, its lack of coherence, depth, or decipherability held it back. It is weird, but for weird’s sake, which makes it a spectacle but not a fully realized cinematic experience. The sleazy B-horror roots this twisted tree sprouts from also constrain its flowering; its just an empty oddity.
VV is an extraordinarily singular and seeping work of corrosive bodily disgust. I liked it for its outright outlandishness. It is a film all by itself, doing its own thing in its own way, caring only for doing what it wants. That may not be quite enough for me to melt into the writhing fleshpit that it presents, but a little succor at the sinewy teat of the strange tasted sweet enough.
