Ruptured Review: Rubber's Lover

Country of origin- Japan 

Year of release- 1996  

Director- Shozin Fukui

Stars- Nao, Norimizu Ameya, Yôta Kawase
      

This is an extremely difficult film to summarise in a traditional manor due to the complete lack of traditional plot structure, or structure in general, but here goes. The film follows a group of utterly insane scientists who believe they have found a way to create the perfect super human with psychic capabilities by injecting captive human guinea pigs with ether and subjecting them to metal torture. The whole project is riddled with problems however as one of the scientists becomes hooked on the ether, and the projects investors want to shut them down. It isn’t long before the scientists last shackles of sanity are completely shed in what can only be described as a pus drenched industrial orgy of noise and death.

Like many of the Japanese cyberpunk films of the 1990’s, Rubber’s Lover focuses upon themes of transhumanism and explores it through ideas of post-human sexuality, fetishism and death, all set against a grimy industrial noir background. This film focuses much of its manic energy upon the characters obscene relationship with both drugs, and the fetishist machinery they use to administer and enhance them. The film uses this to explore the fragility of the human mind, and does this not only in substance, but also through the films bizarre, trippy and often disgusting aesthetics.

Much of the films power comes from its cinematography, which will leave you feeling as though you’re the one on hard drugs as it dashes, twists and darts at the characters, but be warned it does come with a seizure warning. Alongside the films twisted cinematography, the sound design and music add a great deal to the films frantic and disjointed atmosphere, especially as every scream (and there’s a lot) seems to be ten times louder than everything else in the film, giving it a certain cold sharpness.

The only thing that really lets this film down is the very over the top, almost anime like acting that we see in certain scenes, this does detract from the film in some moments. However, getting hung up on an issue like acting in a film like this is kind of missing the point. This can be viewed as just another weird gory trip-fest that doesn’t have much to say beyond screams. Or it can be viewed as an interesting exploration of the human mind, and our increasing reliance on technology to stimulate it. Or it can even be viewed as some very strange fetish porn. No matter what you get from this film at the end, I can assure you it will be worth the experience to get to it. Although definitely not for everyone this is a stunning film that will stay with the viewer for some time to come, I highly recommend it in all its arthouse glory with an 8/10.