Tetsuo: The Iron ManRevenge transforms you. Tetsuo: The Iron Man is an experimental horror movie by visionary filmmaker, Shinya Tsukamoto, about an unnamed Japanese salaryman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara) who hit a young man--called the "Metal Fetishist" (Shinya Tsukamoto)--with their car; this man had run out into the road after forcibly inserting a metal rod into his leg. The violent collision arouses the couple, who have intercourse in view of the dying fetishist, before they conceal the crime. Shortly thereafter, the salaryman's body begins to violently transform into a cybernetic monster.
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Tetsuo: The Iron Man is an uncompromising work of intense, manic body horror from start to finish without a moment of repose. Shot in black and white and on 16 mm film, the movie has a "snuff film" quality to it, like something inherently dangerous and unnerving. At just over an hour in length, the film moves with the rapid speed of a cocaine-addled junkie racing in the redline. Combined with frequent scenes of disturbing and graphic violence--often with sexual overtones--Tetsuo: The Iron Man is visceral. While the idea of merging man and machine is not unique in sci-fi horror--with similar exemplars of the subgenre including David Cronenberg--Tsukamoto takes the concept and strips away as much of the human element as possible. The plot of Tetsuo: The Iron Man is revealed through the barrage of high-energy violence, and the real focus is in the way it worms into your subconscious. The banging and driving industrial music is a precursor to musical artists like "Nine Inch Nails", where the synthetic overpowers the organic in a virtual war. The incursion of the cybernetic into the lives of the salaryman (and others) is depicted as being like a virulent plague, as if contracted by the fetishist after crashing into his fleshy body with the metal car. Since the symptoms and repercussions of the salaryman's transformation are so undesirable, it could also be regarded as a curse--the revenge of the fetishist. While the salaryman is shaving, he notices a small piece of metal protruding from his face. Unable to remove it, he continues with his routine day, which is promptly interrupted when he is pursued by a woman in the train station. She seems to have been overtaken by the spirit of the fetishist, who is manipulating and transforming her body in order to attack the salaryman. It's possible that all of this is just in the salaryman's head, a reflection of his guilt at his manslaughter and callous dismissal of it. The idea that this is a plague is also related to the current of depraved eroticism running through Tetsuo: The Iron Man, with the affliction as a metaphor for a sexually-transmitted disease. While we know close to nothing about the lives of the salaryman and his girlfriend prior to the hit and run, they exist in a highly sexualized state after it, and in virtually all of the short time we see them together, they are engaged in sex or seductive eating; even the salaryman's dreams are of aberrant encounters with her, laden with cybernetic imagery. There is also a demented kind of "love triangle" between the salaryman, his girlfriend, and the resurrected fetishist who has transformed the salaryman to be like him. Perhaps the fetishist wants to make the salaryman sympathize with him, or he is jealous of the salaryman's affections toward his girlfriend...either way, things end poorly for her as a result of his "attentions". This interpretation is more likely from the standpoint that the fetishist returns to life by commandeering the bodies of women. He acts through them while trying to transform the salaryman, with the cybernetic acting as a substitute for sexuality. The fetishist's efforts to "transform" himself since the start of Tetsuo: The Iron Man is similar in principle to gender reassignment--he is becoming someone different than who he was when he was born.
It is unclear where the name of this film came from--the "Tetsuo" portion of it at least. The name is most likely a reference to the animated cult horror film, Akira, since the antagonist from that film also goes through a similarly dramatic and violent physical change, and his name is Tetsuo Shima. Tetsuo: The Iron Man was a watershed moment for filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto, who would go on to direct a multitude of surreal and often disturbing films. As the story goes, this introductory effort was a grueling and lengthy process to shoot which spanned approximately a year and a half. Made on a shoe-string budget, the raw black and white aesthetic in Tetsuo: The Iron Man makes it like the Japanese equivalent of Eraserhead, with Tsukamoto as a counterpoint to that film's creator, David Lynch. Both films play off of the idea of a hallucinatory nightmare mutating the protagonist, ultimately destroying him in order to make him into something new or transcendent. Tsukamoto's film is arguably the more cynical of the two, as it suggests that the transformation of the salaryman and fetishist is rooted in severe behavioral disorders and a life out of balance with nature and society. As a Japanese "salaryman", the protagonist looks like a corporate drone; he might as well be just another cog in the proverbial machine. (Iin his perverse, nerdy, and schizophrenic way, he shares more than a passing resemblance to the assorted horror characters played by cult film favorite, Jeffrey Combs.) The paranoia and madness is rooted in his feelings of inferiority and powerlessness in his real life; this could account for his indulgences in deviant sexual proclivities with his girlfriend that involve a distinct "power" dynamic. The world of Tetsuo: The Iron Man is one that is so removed from nature, that technology is already ubiquitous, causing neurosis to those in its vicinity. Tetsuo: The Iron Man plays up the twisted eroticism that comes from submitting to a self-destructive urge. Technology becomes more than an enhancement to modern living--it replaces life. You can see the effects all around...people glued to their cellphones, Netflix binges, and social media; without technology, our lives feel empty--a sensation like the withdrawal from a drug. Even before the transformation, the salaryman and his girlfriend clearly have a dysfunctional relationship. It is also implied that the fetishist was a victim of abuse at a young age, which led him to try to remake himself in response to his trauma. It's likely that the salaryman and his girlfriend spend all their free time together in his apartment, having increasingly depraved sex, like the couple from In the Realm of the Senses--but it is an indulgence that eventually destroys them. The fundamental message coded within Tetsuo: The Iron Man is that a life removed from nature is one of madness and self-annihilation.
Recommended for: Fans of an intense and experimental body horror movie that demands to be experienced more than understood. With its distinct and uncompromising vision, along with a pulsing musical score, the cult influence of Tetsuo: The Iron Man can be felt in the works of both independent filmmakers and industrial rock musicians.
It is unclear where the name of this film came from--the "Tetsuo" portion of it at least. The name is most likely a reference to the animated cult horror film, Akira, since the antagonist from that film also goes through a similarly dramatic and violent physical change, and his name is Tetsuo Shima. Tetsuo: The Iron Man was a watershed moment for filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto, who would go on to direct a multitude of surreal and often disturbing films. As the story goes, this introductory effort was a grueling and lengthy process to shoot which spanned approximately a year and a half. Made on a shoe-string budget, the raw black and white aesthetic in Tetsuo: The Iron Man makes it like the Japanese equivalent of Eraserhead, with Tsukamoto as a counterpoint to that film's creator, David Lynch. Both films play off of the idea of a hallucinatory nightmare mutating the protagonist, ultimately destroying him in order to make him into something new or transcendent. Tsukamoto's film is arguably the more cynical of the two, as it suggests that the transformation of the salaryman and fetishist is rooted in severe behavioral disorders and a life out of balance with nature and society. As a Japanese "salaryman", the protagonist looks like a corporate drone; he might as well be just another cog in the proverbial machine. (Iin his perverse, nerdy, and schizophrenic way, he shares more than a passing resemblance to the assorted horror characters played by cult film favorite, Jeffrey Combs.) The paranoia and madness is rooted in his feelings of inferiority and powerlessness in his real life; this could account for his indulgences in deviant sexual proclivities with his girlfriend that involve a distinct "power" dynamic. The world of Tetsuo: The Iron Man is one that is so removed from nature, that technology is already ubiquitous, causing neurosis to those in its vicinity. Tetsuo: The Iron Man plays up the twisted eroticism that comes from submitting to a self-destructive urge. Technology becomes more than an enhancement to modern living--it replaces life. You can see the effects all around...people glued to their cellphones, Netflix binges, and social media; without technology, our lives feel empty--a sensation like the withdrawal from a drug. Even before the transformation, the salaryman and his girlfriend clearly have a dysfunctional relationship. It is also implied that the fetishist was a victim of abuse at a young age, which led him to try to remake himself in response to his trauma. It's likely that the salaryman and his girlfriend spend all their free time together in his apartment, having increasingly depraved sex, like the couple from In the Realm of the Senses--but it is an indulgence that eventually destroys them. The fundamental message coded within Tetsuo: The Iron Man is that a life removed from nature is one of madness and self-annihilation.
Recommended for: Fans of an intense and experimental body horror movie that demands to be experienced more than understood. With its distinct and uncompromising vision, along with a pulsing musical score, the cult influence of Tetsuo: The Iron Man can be felt in the works of both independent filmmakers and industrial rock musicians.