SERIES REVIEW: TOKYO VAMPIRE HOTEL

Many of Sion Sono's films have had labyrinthian plots with a plethora of characters which felt like they could have been developed further. The inherent limit of film is that you only have around two to three hours to traditionally tell a narrative, and sometimes this isn't sufficient time to properly explore everything a filmmaker originaly intended to portray. The solution to this for some filmmakers is that they create a sort of "cinematic universe," by having certain characters or plots from previous films re-appear in later films. With the 388 minute long Amazon TV series Tokyo Vampire Hotel (2016), Sion Sono is finally able to create a single mammoth vision that almost serves as an encapsulation of many of his previous themes and obsessions, but brought to an even more epic level. 

Although Sono previously made the Japanese television series Minna! ESPer Dayo!, that was more of a work for hire that didn't have Sono's usual artistic flair. Tokyo Vampire Hotel is a much more personal and original project for Sono. Like Noriko's Dinner Table and Love Exposure, Tokyo Vampire Hotel involves a secret cult who recruits those from the outside world to offer them a form of salvation. As Tokyo Vampire Hotel begins, a young woman named Manami (Ami Tomite) is targeted by two groups of vampires, the Dracula and the Corvin clans, who each want to abduct her to help her harnass her untapped vampiric powers. Eventually, the vampire Yamada (Shinnosuke Mitsushima) of the Corvin clan captures Manami and brings her to the palatial Requiem Hotel, where he intends to imprison Manami and a large group of other innocent people in order to help himself and his partner Elizabeth Bathory (Megumi Kagurazaka) achieve nefarious goals. In the meantime, the vampire K (Kaho) of the Dracula clan races against time to try to rescue Manami from the Corvin clan.

This plot summary makes Tokyo Vampire Hotel sound like a typical horror story, but Sion Sono embues the series with all kinds of surrealist and eccentric touches which elevate it beyond the genre. Admittedly, some of the more traditional gothic elements in the opening episodes border on vampire lore cliches, especially the scenes set in Transylvania. But, once Sono moves the story arc to the Hotel Requiem, he is back in his usual subversive terrain. The scenes of unflinching torture and depravity that Yamada inflicts on his prisoners in the hotel at times recalls Pier Paolo Pasolini notorious Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Like Salo, Tokyo Vampire Hotel explores the dark depths of human cruelty and brutality, a theme which Sono himself has depitced in previous films like Strange Circus and Antiporno. 

Much of Tokyo Vampire Hotel takes place in the Hotel Requiem, and the set design of the location is astonishing in both its aesthetic glamor as well as its more grotesque elements. The scenes where Elizabeth Bathory's pulsating body starts to merge with the very structure and architecture of the hotel itself reminds one of the body-horror films of David Cronenberg, as the barriers between the flesh and artifically created environments form a new alternately repuslive yet strangely alluring whole. Once you make it past the more traditional first few episodes, you'll discover Sion Sono in all his usual taboo destroying glory.

Another common theme in Sion Sono's later work is the battle between love and hate, or light and darkness. Many of Sono's earlier films were nihilistic portrayals of human nature, with virtually no hint of redemption or optimism. This is best exemplified by his darkest film Strange Circus, which was an almost non-stop barrage of images of torture and pain. With Love Exposure, Sono seemed to turn a corner in his career, as for the first time he made a film which, despite its many scenes of violence and brutality, had a strong undercurrent of blissful hope. Sono would return to his more despairing tone in subsequent films like Himizu and Why Don't You Play in Hell?, but even those films had a hint of faith in humankind.

With Tokyo Vampire Hotel, Sono balances out the earlier scenes of vile human behavior with later episodes that explore lightness overcoming darkness. The former scenes of innocent people being tortured and killed in the Hotel Requiem are replaced with a new society of vampires and humans living in peace and harmony with each other. The cult of the vampires based upon exploitation over others is now an altruistic group whose core values are the peace and well-being of the community, similar in a way to the Zero Church cult in Love Exposure. 

While Love Exposure signaled Sono's evolution from a prince of nihilism to a more benign filmmaker, Sono still has maintained his subversive edge, as evidenced by his decision to not shirk from exploring the darker depths of the human soul in Tokyo Vampire Hotel. One can say that Sono is a more developed artist now, because he has found a way to balance out the unyielding cynicism of his earlier films with more sanguine themes. Sono has always been fascinated in exploring the lives of outsiders who commit criminal acts, from serial killers, to con-men, to gangsters, but now he is equally intereted in portarying characters who dwell in more harmonious waters. Ultimately, Tokyo Vampire Hotel is about a battle for the soul of an innocent woman, and this time lightness may actually overcome darkness.

FILM REVIEW: LOVE EXPOSURE

In every major filmmaker's career, there is at least one film that defines who they are as an artist, and which best exemplifies their unique voice. They may go on to make equally accomplished films that may even rank among the best films of all time, but you can always trace a visionary director's work back to a single, exemplary film. For Alfred Hitchcock, that film is Vertigo, and for the maestro Martin Scorsese, that film is Goodfellas. For the controversial and brilliant Japanese filmmaker Sion Sono, that film is his masterpiece Love Exposure (2008), an epic, nearly four-hour long fantasmagoric portrait of youthful love amidst a society torn apart by violence, broken families, and religious fanaticism.

Love Exposure is the first part of a loose trilogy of films by Sion Sono, which also consists of Cold Fish (2010) and Guilty of Romance (2011). Known as his "Hate" Trilogy, Sion Sono explores how love can oftentimes become twisted into obsession and perversion in all three films. While Cold Fish and Guilty of Romance are much more downbeat and nihilistic films, Love Exposure also reaches into some pretty dark depths of human depravity. However, what sets Love Exposure apart from the other two films in the trilogy is its ultimately hopeful message of love as the ultimate form of redemption.

The focus of Love Exposure is on the relationship between Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) and the young woman he is almost hopelessly in love with, the emotionally volatile Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima). Surrounding Yu's obsessive quest for Yoko's love are a plethora of outside forces which constantly threaten to entangle him--Yu's maniacally religious father Tetsu (Atsuro Watabe), a homicidal young woman named Aya Koike (Sakura Ando) who tries to abduct and indoctrinate Yu's family into a cult known as "Zero Church," and Yu's father's new girlfriend Kaori (Makiko Watanabe), a nymphomaniac whose rabid sexual appetite threatens Tetsu's religious beliefs.

Much of Love Exposure is shot with rapidly moving, hand-held cameras, giving it an exhilirating, liberating momentum which reminds one of the rule-breaking 1960s films of the French New Wave era. Scenes are displayed out of chronological order at times, as Sono freely cuts back and forth in time, and the acting in the film approaches a level of inspired hysteria at times that borders on an Andrjez Zulawski level of trance-like performances. You can feel the blood, sweat, and passion of Sono in almost every frame of Love Exposure, and one gets the sense that Sono is finally free of the traditional bounds of studio filmmaking, and he's relishing the opportunity to tell a story in his own original, unique voice. 

Against this backdrop of shall we say colorful characters, Sion Sono navigates his protagonist Yu's character arc through some outrageously absurd plot points, including an underground group of misfits who specialize in up-skirt photography of young women as a form of spiritual fulfillment. What ties all these seemingly disparate elements together is the theme of love being distorted into sexual perversion, as reflected in a more humorous manner with the up-skirt photography group, and in a darker manner with the sexual abuse subplot of Aya's character. It's no coincidence that the purpose of the Zero Church cult is to indoctrinate its members to resist all forms of sexual temptation in order to discover a more pure form of love. The final image of Love Exposure, which I will not spoil for the reader, is the purest distillation of this theme of love existing as a pure force of nature, completely divorced from all forms of perversion.

Indeed, the defining moment of Love Exposure occures after Yu abducts Yoko from the Zero Church cult, and she confronts him on a beach. Hovering over Yu like a woman possessed, Yoko gives an impassioned speech about pure love as the greatest human emotion, quoting from Corinthians 13 while Beethoven's Seventh Symphony slowly grows to a crescendo in the background. She contrasts Yu's seemingly sexual obsession with her to the familial and communal love she encountered as a cult member of the Zero Church.

It's interesting that in a career spent making films exploring all forms of human sexual debauchery and taboos, Sion Sono's best film would be one that questioned the very moral nature of these previous films. One gets the sense that Sono is almost atoning for his past "sins" as a filmmaker with Love Exposure, a film which itself contains its fair number of sexually deviant scenes, but which has an underlying current of moral and spiritual judgement running through it. After spending many years exploring the deepest and darkest depths of the human psyche, perhaps Sono has finally discovered and exposed the pure and undying love within all of us as human beings.

IT'S ABOUT INCLUSION, NOT EXCLUSION

It's interesting that ever since the Academy of Motion Picturs Art and Sciences anounced their new, more inclusive rules for eligibility for the Best Picture category, a culture war has developed between those who support the new rules as a step forward in opporutnities for minorities, and those who view the rules as somehow being a form of creative censorship and authoritarianism. Ironically, many of those in this latter camp are the same free-thinking individuals who supported the Black Lives Matter movement and were vocal in their support for police reform against brutality towards African-Americans. Now, when the Academy is doing its part to provide more equal opportunities for underrepresented communities in the industry, these formerly progressive advocates for equality are suddenly outraged and accusing the Academy of "stifling creativity."

Before we get into why so many of these individuals are so angry let's examine closely what exactly the new Academy rules are. In an effort to provide more opportunities for minorities both in front of and behind the camera in key leadership roles, the Academy implemented new rules that, starting in 2024, in order for a film to qualify for a Best Picture nomination, it must meet two out of these four standards (A through D):

Standard A (On-Screen Representation, Themes, and Narratives)-- To qualify, the film must meet one of these three criteria:

A1: At least one of the actors, either in a lead or a supporting role, must belong to an ethnic minority grouop. 

A2: At least 30% of all actors in secondary and more minor roles are from at least two of the following underrepresented groups: women, racial or ethnic group, LGBTQ+, people with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

A3: The main storyline(s), theme or narrative of the film is centered on an underrpresented group(s)--women, racial or ethnic grouop, LGBTQ+, people with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing. 

Standard B (Creative Leadership and Project Team)- To qualify, the film must meet one of these three criteria below:

B1: At least two of the following creative leadership positions and department heads (Casting Director, Cinematographer, Composer, Costume Designer, Director, Editor, Hairstylist, Makeup Artist, Produer, Production Designer, Set Decorator, Sound, VFX Supervisor, Writer) are from the following underrpresented groups: 

• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

At least one of those positions must belong to an ethnic minority group.

B2: At least six other crew/team and technical positions are from an underrpresented racial or ethnic group. 

B3: At least 30% of the film's crew is from the following underrepresented groups:

• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

And, to summarize the remaining standards, for Standard C, a film must have paid apprenticeships, internships, and training opporunities for underrpresented groups, and for Standard D, a film should have multiple in-house senior executives from an underrepresented group on their marketing, publicity, and/or distribution teams.

The key to understanding these rules are that for a film to be eligible for Best Picture, the film must only meet two out of four of the standards, and within each standard, the film would have to meet only one of the three required rules. Many of those who are opposed to the rules change state that it is somehow a form of censorhip which will stifle the creativity of the filmmakers, because it would require them to insert a minority actor/character into the film even if that character is not part of the original storyline. However, a film could qualify even if it featured an all-White cast and all-White themed storyline as long as some of the paid interns/trainees and in-house senior executives are minorities (that would qualify the film under standards C and D).

This pretty much destroys the argument by those who are against these rules as somehow stifling "creative freedom," as nothing in the actual film's storyline or character descriptions has changed, as long as the film production has employed some minority key crew members or interns/trainees.

In fact, by giving key crew positions to minorities and/or underrepresented groups, a film is opening up opporutnities for those who normally would be passed over for these positions, and this in the end would benefit the film production as a whole as it would offer a diversity of voices in the creative decision making processes of the film. These new rules are not some sort of a draconian Hays Code form of censorship dictating to filmmakers what they can or cannot film; rather, they are guidelines to provide more opportunities for ethnic groups and underrepresented communities that have traditionally been ignored on film sets.

Even if a film wanted to try to qualify under standards A and B, all the filmmakers would have to do is have at least one actor in either a lead or supporting role who was a minority or member of an underrepresented group, and hire a key leadership crew member from the same categories. Would having one Asian-American actor on set and one African-American director on set somehow ruin the creative vision of a film that otherwise was a majority White production? Those who are arguing against these new rules somehow seem to feel threatened by the presence of having two non-White people in key roles on set, and this is very troubling. It's as if those who are against implementing these new rules somehow think the African-American director and Asian-American actor would somehow conspire together to sabotage the film.

Some have even argued that by requiring a certain number of minorities on a film set, it will prevent other more qualified people from being hired solely based on their skillset. By following this line of reasoning, it implies that by introducing minorities into potential consideration for film jobs, the overall skill level for the film set will not be as consistent because the minorities are not as skilled or qualified as the non-minority film crew members. Thus, historically, Hollywood has hired White actors to portray minority characters because they were considered more talented than their minority counterparts.

This thinking is what could have led Disney to decide to hire only White crew members in all the major leadership positions, from director, to writer, to cinematographer, on their Chinese set and themed film Mulan. It was Disney's intention to create an "authentic" portayal of Chinese culture, and they didn't think it would be beneficial to hire Chinese lead crew members who had intimate knowledge of their own culture to help them in their efforts?  Instead, it is glaring that not a single key consultant on the Mulan film was Chinese; my only thought was that xenophobia played a role and they didn't want to give Chinese people control over the telling of their own stories.

On the other hand, the Disney film Black Panter (albeit it was more of a Marvel film) was the opposite of the Mulan situation in the sense that not only were all the lead actors African-American, but the director and many of the lead crew positions were also African-Americans and minorities. This resulted in a film that creatively touched on many aspects of Black culture to tell a unique and compelling story about the African-American experience in the form of a super hero film. Mulan could have turned out the same way, but instead we got a White-washed portrait of Chinese culture that couldn't even resonate with audiences in China itself.

The history of Hollywood is rife with examples of non-representation of minority cultures, from casting Al Jolson, a white lead actor in blackface, to play an African-American character in the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, to casting Rex Harrison, a British actor, to play the Asian lead character in the 1946 film Anna and the King of Siam. Even behind the camera, Hollywood has traditionally hired White creative leads to tell the story of non-minority cultures, as exemplified in misfires such as Memoirs of a Geisha, which also cluelessly cast Chinese actors to play Japanese characters. 

So, the new Academy rules are smartly addressing these issues by encouraging filmmakers to employ more minorities in key leadership positions both behind and in front of the camera to tell more accurate stories about their own cultures. Again, even if filmmakers were telling an all-White themed story, all they would have to do is employ key crew positions with minorities, which would only benefit the film in the end by opening up opportunities for underrepresented communities, and bring diverse voices into the mix.

The same seemingly progressive individuals who support BLM and are agaisnt police brutatlity are suddenly up in arms over the new Academy rules for inclusivity in the industry, but as I explained above, these rules are not some new form of creative censorship. If you read the rules carefully, you can clearly see that they are framed to simply allow more opportunities for minorities and underrepresented groups to contribute to the making of a film. 

The rules do not dictate that you have to arbitraly include a minority character into your film; instead, you just have to open up your mind and allow those who have traditionally been ignored some decision making input on your film set, either behind the camera or in front of it. If you view the rules this way, you'll see that the new rules are not about exluding your creative freedom and power, instead it's about including those who want their voices to finally be heard into the filmmaking process.