Super charged and intense the opening scenes of Tetsuo prepare the viewer for a turbulent visual trip; pulsing with primal energy this is a hyper-surreal nightmare with incredible bite.
Shot in grainy black and white 16-mm, it was made with a low budget. The character dialogue is sparse; instead the story reveals itself visually with an ingenious experimental feel throughout. The movement of the actors’ bodies across the set mimics an archaic ritualistic dance, one that leads us through the insanity of a businessman’s mysterious descent into hell.
A male metal fetishist sits in an abandoned industrial scrap yard; the hand held camera focuses in on the technological elements - the pipes and wires covering every inch of the room. A torn picture of a running athlete is stuck to the wall, the only other human element visible in the confined space. The young man cuts open his thigh and inserts a metal rod into the open flesh and muscle; sweat drips from every pore in his body, as pain tears through his skin. This is his first attempt at a self-implant a process that he hopes will ‘mould’ his flesh and the metal together creating a new biomechanical body. The wound soon becomes infected and he runs into the open streets screaming, where an oncoming car knocks him down.
Sleazy saxophone music announces the arrival of the car and the driver, a Japanese businessman with his attractive girlfriend. We are not told their names or too many details of the accident, only that the crash becomes a hit and run.
The morning after the businessman awakens to find a metal segment from an electrical shaver has become imbedded inside his face. He attempts to pull it free but his flesh has now begun to merge with the metal, so begins his horrendous and speedy conversion to Iron Man. Perspiration oozes from his skin as he sits in his gloomy apartment building, peeling wallpaper covering the walls of the dimly lit rooms. It seems in this society the affluent are living in overheated uninviting apartment buildings!
Now we discover that the fetishist’s self-implant experiment failed because he used a rusty piece of metal, but the businessman accidentally succeeds with his stainless steel shard. Soon harrowing mutations begin to overpower the businessman’s body altering his physical being; his mental state beginning a steady disintegration culminating in a series of vivid hallucinations, all of which are tinged with violence.
As in the work of David Cronenberg’s films (Videodrome, Shivers and Rabid) sexual eroticism and hallucinatory visions are a strong feature of the transformation of the flesh. Sex between the newly evolving Iron man and his girlfriend becomes fiercer than ever, there mouths and bodies pressing into each other in a frenzy of sexual need. His ***** now becomes a huge swirling power drill, switched on and ready for action. It destroys the furniture in his flat adding a darkly humorous twist to the story; his girlfriend is both fearful and fascinated by the strange biological changes to his body. As he sleeps he has nightmares that he is being sodomised in a steamy room with a new metal sexual organ attached to his girlfriends crotch. The steam and heat always represent a release of sexual energy in Tsukamoto’s films. Eventually the ramifications of his newly acquired anatomy destroy his relationship and his girlfriend, she climbs on top of him and is killed by his drill like *****, blood spraying the walls of the room.
The car crash from the beginning of the film is now replayed on the TV screens in Iron man’s apartment in a series of flashbacks. These memories disclose the accurate events of that morning, instead of helping the fetishist they hit with the car; the crash sexually arouses the couple. They have sex against a tree, totally turned on by the fact that the fetishist is lying injured on the ground helplessly forced to watch them. The ideas of sexual arousal and car crashes were first established in JG Ballard’s controversial novel – Crash*. Iron man becomes enraged as he recalls his behaviour at the accident believing that his current metamorphosis is due to retribution and punishment for his behaviour at the crash scene, in fact the businessman is riddled with feelings of guilt and remorse throughout the story, in one way his behaviour identifies the fact that he cannot fit neatly into societies regimented rules.
He storms around the room, metal objects attaching themselves to every part of his badly disfigured body, with the touch of his hand his cat changes into hideous half metal squealing creature. The fetishist and Iron man seem to be telepathically linked; the fetishist antagonises Iron man arriving at his apartment forcing him to look at his vision of a New World so that they can join together as a united force. The world Iron man exposes is one in which technology and machinery is the clear ruler, the ultimate fantasy for the fetishist. Using some incredible animation techniques representative of the work by Jan Svankmajer* we see a host of extraordinary imagery including a human skull being devoured beneath thousands of metal fragments.
By this time Iron man barely resembles his former self, only his eyes give a the viewer a glimpse of his pain and torment. Like a disease his body has been ravaged by it’s metal counterpart, but rather than killing him it is simply thriving in it’s own unique way. Vengeance and anger, all of which are aimed at the fetishist, are the only emotions left within the monster he has become. The two protagonists engage in a colossal battle for supremacy. The fetishist does everything he can to control Iron Man, who eventually tries to commit suicide by rusting himself to death. The fetishist tells him to stop resisting, that his future is metal. Accelerating through the streets at high speed, the fight eventually ends and they join together to become one huge metal mutation, of tank like proportions, they move through the streets determined to destroy the world with their metal power and newfound love.
Throughout the film the industrial environment of the city hovers menacingly over the suburban houses, it is the catalyst for the primal urges of society. This land is tempestuous and uncivilised but has great power. The physical mutations in the businessman can be seen as a metaphor for the negative impact of technological advances and our increasing dependency on technology. In the future we will be placing even more trust in mechanical devices as robotic technology enters our homes. Clearly Iron man mutates with the aid of an everyday piece of electrical equipment, which could be found in any home. Society has become dehumanised by living amongst the cold environment of the machines. In this case metal infects human cells creating a new breed a monster capable of mass destruction; one could also ask if society itself has created this monster.
The film is extremely complicated and yet has a modest narrative, it can be interpreted in many different ways, for instance one could judge the death of the female and the way in which she is killed and the later relationship that develops between Iron man and the fetishist as the story of a man coming to terms with his true sexuality.
There are no easy explanations for the plot it would be too simplistic to stick labels on this particular complex monster film. There are moments of pure savagery and horror; the human flesh is frail and insubstantial when confronted with the power of this dysfunctional technology. Tsukamoto certainly delivers a vision that invites analysis and conversation; more than that he uses the infinite potential of his unusual imagination to leave us in awe of his gifted genius.
Super part-time, but still.
