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| "A sadistic and cruel film" |
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Subconscious Cruelty
2 DVDS/APPROX. 80 MINS/1999/GERMANY UNRATED
2 DVDS/APPROX. 80 MINS/1999/GERMANY UNRATED
Subconscious Cruelty is a piece of pure experimental cinema which blends the elements of a visceral arthouse film with images of extreme horror
& graphic gore. It explores the themes of obsession, the subconscious, religion, sexuality and generally pushes the boundaries and breaks taboos.
A main focus of the film is on the dualism of the human mind, the struggle of the left / right brain - the left hemisphere represents logic, restraint
and rational thought while the right hemisphere projects lust, irrationality and intuition.
The film is split into a series of 4 vignettes, first up is a short introduction which has a female narrator detailing how humans escape their dull
existence through the magic of cinema, spoken over images of a dead pigeon wrapped in rolls of film.
In the first segment - Ovarian Eyeball, a naked woman lies on a table while another woman slices open her abdomen with a scalpel and removes
an eyeball still attached to the optic nerve. A seemingly nonsensical yet rather striking image, it is left to the viewer to interpret it as they will.
The second, longer episode- Human Larvae, concerns a creepy dude who lives alone with his pregnant sister. He often spies on her and
masturbates while she has sex with various men. He is both aroused and repulsed by his sisters pregnancy and in his constant monotone
narration he speaks of “committing the ultimate act of evil” and making a mockery of the miracle of birth - he helps his sister to give birth then as
he delivers the baby he slashes its throat with a box-cutter and bleeds the child-corpse all over its mothers face. He then severs the umbilical cord
with his teeth and stuffs it back into his sisters vagina. This segment explores the image of woman as the mother figure, the giver of life and also
the whore. The shots are beautifully composed with lots of bold reds, blues and greens which evoke the work of Dario Argento. Though at times
the delivery of the brother’s monologue sounds a little contrived and unconvincing, this vignette still works very well as a shocking and genuinely
unique piece of cinema.
Next up is another short piece, Rebirth, which features naked folk “raping the earth” by fucking and fisting bloody holes in the ground while rolling
around in orgiastic ecstasy, one chick also gives a bleeding branch a blowjob. Nothin’ too mind-blowing about this segment except the end scene
where a guy bloodily fellates a female with a knife for a cock.
The final chapter- Right Brain / Martyrdom, is definitely my favourite of the bunch. We follow a lonely businessman through various bars and back to
his Hotel where he masturbates to some porno, then, due to some strange dreams / visions, his penis is suddenly torn apart by fishhooks then
violently jerked off by a females hand. The right brain is gaining strength and killing the left. Later, the businessman melts down a crucifix and
shoots it up into his forehead. Suddenly it cuts to Jesus on a main street somewhere in America, 3 naked vampire / cannibal chicks drag him away
and explicitly mutilate him with teeth, nails & razorblades; they eat and masturbate with his entrails, piss in his mouth and on his wounds, then
anally rape him with a big tree branch. Intercut with these graphically blasphemous scenes we see various religious icons desecrated and footage
of religious wars and people dying for their faith. Obviously a blatant and vicious attack on religious hypocrisy and all things holy, this is a
particularly nasty segment and a breathtaking climax.
Shot on a very low budget by two eighteen / nineteen year-olds, Karim Hussain and Mitch Davis, Subconscious Cruelty is an almost perfect film.
The budget never shows as the cinematography, lighting and SFX are all handled expertly and all combine to make one beautifully monstrous piece
of celluloid. David Kristian’s sound design deserves a mention here too, it effortlessly ranges from undeniably “Lynchian” tones and drones to
harsh white noise, adding plenty to the already thick atmosphere. There is no linear narrative at all in the film, it is of a highly symbolic and
transgressive nature which brings to mind Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, The Vienna Aktionists and Georges Bataille’s extreme boundary-
crossing ideals of the erotic / grotesque.
All in all, Subconscious Cruelty is a wonderfully nihilistic arthouse film that is sure to either offend or overjoy people with its graphic gore, blatant
sacrilegious imagery, incest, baby-killing, and plenty of other deviant and nausea-inducing (for some) themes & scenarios. I highly recommend it
and would rate it up there with other such art / gore films as Aftermath, Naked Blood, Cutting Moments, et al.
The DVD reviewed is the jam-packed 2-disc Sazuma release, which has made the film available for the first time in its original uncut / uncensored
form, with a 1.33:1 full frame presentation plus a letterbox option and English, German and Dutch subtitles.
& graphic gore. It explores the themes of obsession, the subconscious, religion, sexuality and generally pushes the boundaries and breaks taboos.
A main focus of the film is on the dualism of the human mind, the struggle of the left / right brain - the left hemisphere represents logic, restraint
and rational thought while the right hemisphere projects lust, irrationality and intuition.
The film is split into a series of 4 vignettes, first up is a short introduction which has a female narrator detailing how humans escape their dull
existence through the magic of cinema, spoken over images of a dead pigeon wrapped in rolls of film.
In the first segment - Ovarian Eyeball, a naked woman lies on a table while another woman slices open her abdomen with a scalpel and removes
an eyeball still attached to the optic nerve. A seemingly nonsensical yet rather striking image, it is left to the viewer to interpret it as they will.
The second, longer episode- Human Larvae, concerns a creepy dude who lives alone with his pregnant sister. He often spies on her and
masturbates while she has sex with various men. He is both aroused and repulsed by his sisters pregnancy and in his constant monotone
narration he speaks of “committing the ultimate act of evil” and making a mockery of the miracle of birth - he helps his sister to give birth then as
he delivers the baby he slashes its throat with a box-cutter and bleeds the child-corpse all over its mothers face. He then severs the umbilical cord
with his teeth and stuffs it back into his sisters vagina. This segment explores the image of woman as the mother figure, the giver of life and also
the whore. The shots are beautifully composed with lots of bold reds, blues and greens which evoke the work of Dario Argento. Though at times
the delivery of the brother’s monologue sounds a little contrived and unconvincing, this vignette still works very well as a shocking and genuinely
unique piece of cinema.
Next up is another short piece, Rebirth, which features naked folk “raping the earth” by fucking and fisting bloody holes in the ground while rolling
around in orgiastic ecstasy, one chick also gives a bleeding branch a blowjob. Nothin’ too mind-blowing about this segment except the end scene
where a guy bloodily fellates a female with a knife for a cock.
The final chapter- Right Brain / Martyrdom, is definitely my favourite of the bunch. We follow a lonely businessman through various bars and back to
his Hotel where he masturbates to some porno, then, due to some strange dreams / visions, his penis is suddenly torn apart by fishhooks then
violently jerked off by a females hand. The right brain is gaining strength and killing the left. Later, the businessman melts down a crucifix and
shoots it up into his forehead. Suddenly it cuts to Jesus on a main street somewhere in America, 3 naked vampire / cannibal chicks drag him away
and explicitly mutilate him with teeth, nails & razorblades; they eat and masturbate with his entrails, piss in his mouth and on his wounds, then
anally rape him with a big tree branch. Intercut with these graphically blasphemous scenes we see various religious icons desecrated and footage
of religious wars and people dying for their faith. Obviously a blatant and vicious attack on religious hypocrisy and all things holy, this is a
particularly nasty segment and a breathtaking climax.
Shot on a very low budget by two eighteen / nineteen year-olds, Karim Hussain and Mitch Davis, Subconscious Cruelty is an almost perfect film.
The budget never shows as the cinematography, lighting and SFX are all handled expertly and all combine to make one beautifully monstrous piece
of celluloid. David Kristian’s sound design deserves a mention here too, it effortlessly ranges from undeniably “Lynchian” tones and drones to
harsh white noise, adding plenty to the already thick atmosphere. There is no linear narrative at all in the film, it is of a highly symbolic and
transgressive nature which brings to mind Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, The Vienna Aktionists and Georges Bataille’s extreme boundary-
crossing ideals of the erotic / grotesque.
All in all, Subconscious Cruelty is a wonderfully nihilistic arthouse film that is sure to either offend or overjoy people with its graphic gore, blatant
sacrilegious imagery, incest, baby-killing, and plenty of other deviant and nausea-inducing (for some) themes & scenarios. I highly recommend it
and would rate it up there with other such art / gore films as Aftermath, Naked Blood, Cutting Moments, et al.
The DVD reviewed is the jam-packed 2-disc Sazuma release, which has made the film available for the first time in its original uncut / uncensored
form, with a 1.33:1 full frame presentation plus a letterbox option and English, German and Dutch subtitles.
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