Visitor Q (Bijitâ Q) Review

Movie: Visitor Q (Bijitâ Q)
By: Maniac E
Date: May 6, 2012

Sick, Twisted, Offensive, Brilliant

Takashi Miike is well known for his freaky, weird, and over the top horror movies. One thing he always has in is movies is an comment towards society. So with Visitor Q Takashi Miike wants to gives us his views on the whole "Big Brother" thing. This darkly humorous commentary on reality television and the state of the family is one movie you don’t want to skip.

The film begins where most dysfunctional family storylines end; the Yamazaki family is already a mess when we come into the film. As a father, Kiyoshi (Kenichi Endo) merely pretends to head the household, choosing instead to spend his time shooting a documentary about young people in Japan. When the teenage prostitute he visits as part of his investigation turns out to be his daughter, Miki (Fujiko), he willingly has sex with her. His son, Takuya, returns home after being bullied at school to berate and beat his mother (Shungicu Uchida) Keiko, who is a heroin addict that turns tricks to support her habit. Interestingly, traditional family roles remain intact throughout the film but the characters fail completely in them. This weak, ineffectual father, insecure son, self-loathing mother, and promiscuous daughter lack power over their own lives.

Rather than deal with that, they escape through deviant behavior until a mysterious visitor hits Kiyoshi on the head with a rock, initiating change. Like a perverse Mary Poppins, the Visitor (Kazushi Watanabe) appears out of nowhere and leaves when the family is reunited at the film's end. He is a catalyst for self-discovery and repair. This is not to say their activities are any less depraved; they even more disgusting, but the point is the Yamazakis are a happy and fully engaged family again. It is endearing in an odd, repulsive way. Miike means this to be a happy ending.

Miike presents us with the single most screwed up family ever to be represented on film. In true carnivalesque fashion, Visitor Q turns the traditional family and it's roles upside down, ripping apart values and breaking taboos to eventually free the characters from their fears and failures; but not in the way you'd expect. From beginning to end the depravities committed by these characters are so over the top, viewers gifted with a strong stomach and a warped sense of humor may find themselves laughing while wondering what could possibly be next.

The style of the film is b-worthy in every way, with this I just mean the film making on its own. Thanks to the style of the film Miike gets away with almost everything in this film. The effects used in the movie just fit it a guy sawing a knife in someone's head doesn't have to look clean and correct thanks to the style the film uses. The fact that the visitor(he never really says what his name is) bashes people over the head with a rock just because he can is kind of hilarious. To tell the truth, it kept me watching because this family was so messed up. And the way Kiyoshi lost his broadcasting job will be remembered... forever.

Miike ended up making a twisted reality check for everyone. This take on the big brother style film making will look familiar to most but with the sick and disgusting things that happen you know Miike ended up writing his autograph on this one. As an avant-garde experimental film, Visitor Q questions what is acceptable cinematically as well as to individual viewers. It hacks away societal taboos by presenting the most perverse acts, constantly challenging the viewers' sense of propriety. Not for the faint hearted and easily offended people.