Shinya Tsukamoto’s revolutionary cyberpunk horror Tetsuo Iron man takes many elements of exploitation and underground film and bends it into a Japanese cultural setting. One of the main aspects of Tetsuo is the aspect of the ‘tragedy’ working man of Tokyo. Tsukamoto also uses the name Tetsuo as a reference from Akira. It seems like a cyberpunk Cronenberg film, however with virtually no budget to speak of; that is Tetsuo Iron Man in a nutshell.
Visually speaking, Tetsuo seems to take a lot of influence from the likes of exploitation film. It’s black and white grading suggests the low budget aspect of it escalates this premise. Tsukamoto incorporates a lot of experimental techniques in his film. Some of the examples include the use of Pixilation (which is stop motion with real people) https://youtu.be/Md8SmYeCeL8?t=1113 . I love the use of these avant-garde techniques within Tetsuo, it adds to the level of creativity, which is further impressive due to notion of the low-budget.
In a similar vein, the use of practical effects within Iron Man Tetsuo strikes something as a brilliant way to use modern day ‘rubbish’ items if you will to your advantage in your films. Tsukamoto and his crew would go to scrapyards around Tokyo in order to find props for this body horror film (Tetsuo) that he was shooting. In a sense trespassing and guerilla filming without any permits. Its this form of film-making that inspires me a lot when i look at films. You can see the effort and level of appreciation for the craft in Tetsuo. The crew and filmmaker just went out to shoot it. For the sheer love of the craft and nothing else. In a sense, I am doing the same thing at the moment with my film. I’m taking the odd old LAN wires and cables that I can find. I’m making fake blood for certain scenes that I plan to do, and the cinematographer of the film and I were looking at how we could get a fake arm or skin and have a wire look like its dug itself into the arm of the protagonist. We were thinking of getting a chicken or using some silicone/clay and doing a extreme close up. Along with making plenty of blood packs that explode on touch (which we are still trying to figure out how to make explode). The practical effects of the film I will probably discuss in a later blog once we actually are able to make, and therefore discuss in further detail about.
On another note I want to bring up Darren Aronofosky and his first feature Pi. Tetsuo and Pi share almost identical aesthetic styles. Both have striking experimental imagery, shot in black and white, and were to an extent ‘controversial’ and its something I want to replicate within my next short film. Albeit, in terms of a influential standing both these films express similar aesthetics that I have in mind. It will be interesting to compare my final product to these films.
Film for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md8SmYeCeL8
