I have just watched Masters of Horror: Imprint.
That was definitely one of the most difficult, but yet strangely beautiful one-hour that I have sat through.
Directed by Takeshi Miike, the acclaimed Japanese director of movies like Audition, Ichi the Killer and a whole host of other yakuza movies, Imprint leaves an indelible mark in your memory. Starring Billy Drago, Youki Kudoh and Shimako Iwai, it featured extremely graphic scenes that caused its premiere in American TV to be shelved.
Set in 19th century Japan, Christopher visits a brothel on an island in search of his love, Komomo. He doesn't find her, and ends up spending the night there instead with a disfigured prostitute.
She talks to him about her childhood, and how she ended up in the brothel. She also tells him that she knew Komomo, and how kind Komomo used to be to her. One day, the madame of the house lost her jade ring, and the other prostitutes, jealous of Komomo's beauty, accuses her of the theft. The madame orders the other girls to ''Do whatever you want with her, but be sure to leave no mark."
And so begins the tortures. What follows is 7 minutes of pure torture, which I found extremely difficult to watch, but yet extremely gripping. The sadistic torturer (who is Shimako Iwai, the writer of the story) starts by burning her armpits with incense. She then takes long needles and gouges them into Komomo's fingernails and gums. All this is done with a look of such pleasure and perversion, the look of someone about to tuck into a plate of succulent oysters.
She lovingly caresses each and every needle before she drives it into Komomo; then her eyes shine and gleam in delight at the sound of Komomo's screams. She does this with such joy, and even takes the time to stand back and admire her handiwork. And this is done to a soundtrack of Komomo's bloodcurdling screams.
After the torture, the disfigured prostitute goes in search of Komomo to feed her some water, but discovers that Komomo had hung herself. When Christopher hears this story, he does not believe the prostitute and begs her to tell the truth.
Now, we hear an even more sinister story. The prostitute's mother was an abortionist, and we see a scene when she is at work. With the aid of a few roots and herbs, her mother removes a fetus from a woman's womb and places it in a tub. Then, she carelessly dumps the fetus into the river and the young prostitutes places a tiny wind toy by the bank. We see shot after shot of fetuses, floating down the river.
After that, we learn that the prostitute has a twin sister, more like a conjoined twin. Up to that point, the story had been beautiful, perfectly crafted, dark, sinister, plausible. The most terrifying horror stories for me are those that actually have a possibility of happening in reality.
When the conjoined twin appeared, with the little mouth and eyes sticking out from a hand from the side of the prostitutes hair - I felt somehow cheated. There was no need for shock anymore, and after that terrifying torture scene, this fake little conjoined twin somehow felt flat. It was as if the director wanted the audience to get another scare, but now it just feels sad, like he was trying too hard to get our attention.
All in all, Imprint is definitely worth watching, if just for the torture scene alone. Now if only we can get Miike to get rid of that damn conjoined twin, Imprint would have been perfect.
