sdyer@bbnccv.UUCP (Steve Dyer) (06/09/85)
The second program of the festival presented two films, the Japanese
"Black Lizard" and the Italo-American "Corrupt." Both films have
Crime, writ large, as their object of examination.
"Black Lizard" is a Japanese comic film noir, detailing the evil exploits
of the "Black Lizard" and her quest to possess the "Star of Egypt" jewel
even as she finds herself falling in love with the Bogart-like detective
who is trying to foil her. It is based on a stage play adapted by Yukio
Mishima, who in fact appears in a cameo towards the end as one of her
human dolls. This, and the general appearance of the film (go-go girls
and body paint) would date it around the late 60's or early 70's. The
film would be merely amusing, if not for the galvanising performance by
Akihiri Maruyama, reportedly Japan's most famous female impersonator, as
the "Black Lizard." This is no mere drag show: Maruyama realizes a female
character as fully as any actor in the Kabuki theater, and it is his
comic artistry which raises this movie to High Camp and sustains it
throughout. In its melodrama and artificiality combined with its fine
technical accomplishment, it approaches the best opera.
"Corrupt" is a WEIRD movie, starring Harvey Keitel, the poor man's DeNiro,
and John Lydon, late of the Sex Pistols. Though it was filmed in New York
with English-speaking actors, it seems to have been produced by an Italian
company, leading one friend of mine to remark that it was a "Spaghetti
Eastern." I found it a very confusing film until I traded notes with friends
outside the theater but nevertheless engrossing and surprising. Now that I've
made more sense of it, it's a film I'd want to see again. Briefly, it
details the rather bizarre S&M relationship which arises between Keitel,
a police detective on the take, and Lydon, a self-proclaimed cop-killer.
It is also about guilt and the expiation of guilt through confession (small-c).
This is a complex film, certainly outside of the ordinary fare--it is no
wonder that it never played much (if at all) in the US.
--
/Steve Dyer
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