From the director of Big Man Japan comes this edgy, absurd, and whip-smart dark comedy, featuring the best use of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” since Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Facing down potential familial tragedy, a lonely man named Takafumi explores the edges of his own repressed sexual desire by hiring the services of a secretive S&M club. Without any warning, a leather-clad dominatrix may appear at any time or place and humiliate and beat him to gratification. All the while, our quiet department store clerk struggles to balance fatherhood, work, and the need to not be caught. Writer-director Hitoshi Matsumoto intercuts the action with a hilariously meta, film-within-a-film critique that continually questions our hero’s onscreen choices and the very scenario upon which the plot hangs.
Sponsored by Yelp!
R100 screens Friday, February 13 at 10:30pm at the Hollywood Theatre as part of the 38th Portland International Film Festival.
Tickets are available online or at the door.
The Portland International Film Festival is sponsored by The Oregonian/OREGONLIVE, LAIKA, Regal Entertainment Group, Delta Airlines, Yelp!, Travel Portland, King Estate, Hotel Modera, The Autzen Foundation, The Lamb-Baldwin Foundation, KINK.fm, and many others.
