Strange Circus (5 Stars)

This is my 16th horror film for November 2019, and it's a classic psychological horror story from Sion Sono. There are so many different elements thrown into the story that it would seem overloaded in the hands of a lesser director.

It's a very disturbing film. Some of the elements hit close to home through their realism. Mitsuko is growing up in an outwardly perfect home. Her father is a school headmaster, her mother is a fine, cultivated lady, and they live in a luxurious home. Appearances can deceive. She's being sexually abused by her father and physically abused by her mother. Mitsuko's father makes her hide in a cello case with a small spy hole, so she can watch while her parents have sex. At first her mother doesn't know they're being watched, but when she finds out things only get worse. The father has sex alternately with his wife and his daughter, and his wife begins to see Mitsuko as a rival for her husband's affections.  Mitsuko is frequently beaten without reason, and yet she still loves her mother. She wants to be her mother.

This is where the film's dialogue becomes confusing. As the years pass, Mitsuko's memories become unclear. She thinks that she's her mother, so that when things happen she doesn't remember which one of them it happened to. Was she the one being hit or the one hitting?

And there's the circus. It's a time, maybe the only time in Mitsuko's childhood, that she was really happy. The bizarre female clowns invite her on stage to put her head in a guillotine. Death can be a pleasurable release from all the suffering of life.

Those are just a few elements of the story. It's a complex plot that confuses the viewer when he first watches it, although everything becomes clear at the end. The film is terrifying, sometimes repulsive, but morbidly fascinating.

"Strange Circus" was released on DVD in 2005, but is now out of print. I'm desperate for a Blu-ray release, but I don't know if there will ever be one. I've been told that Sion Sono is a director who only lives for the moment. What I mean is, as soon as he's made a film it's done and gone. He has no interest in his old films, he's only concerned with his next film. That's tragic. He needs a partner to work by his side. Sion Sono can create art, while his partner is responsible as an intermediary with the fans, providing updated ideal versions of the older films that they still love. Are there any volunteers?