I saw “Antichrist” in theaters without hesitation. I bought “Irreversible” sight-unseen after hearing about its reputation in the early days of online movie chattering. I’ve watched French gorefests like “Martyrs,” “Inside,” and “Frontier(s)” multiple times on purpose, a section of my DVD shelf is devoted to Takashi Miike films (including, but not limited to, “Ichi the Killer” and “Visitor Q“), and I’ve somehow managed to convince my friends to sit through movies like “Happiness” and “Man Bites Dog” with me.
My gross-out movie credentials are important for contextualizing my reaction to “Kuso,” the debut feature of DJ, producer, and rapper Flying Lotus, aka Steve Ellison, which can be summed up as “nauseated.” It takes something special to upset my stomach without manipulating my brain through first-person perspective (a’la “Hardcore Henry“), and so “Kuso,” by my metrics, is a pretty special picture, which goes so far out of its way to provoke and appall its viewers that I’m not sure I possess adequate language for describing it as an experience, much less give it a proper synopsis. Put it this way: If your idea of fun does not involve malformed young men feeding clumps of feces to giant, living anuses nested in a deep, dark wood, or women bound to one another at their legs like cruelly conjoined twins, or insectile creatures with miraculous healing powers snuggling up in George Clinton‘s butt, then “Kuso” is not at all your jam.
And if all of that didn’t get the bile rising in your throat, congratulations: You’re made of stronger stuff than I am, or perhaps the effects of “Kuso” aren’t felt without being seen. (I’m hoping the latter, lest I be forced to cede my reputation as a man of iron constitution.) Maybe try watching any of the film’s trailers, or then again maybe don’t, because movies like “Kuso” are best met head-on or not at all. Minute-length clips of footage from Ellison’s work don’t, can’t do it justice, which is probably for the best. Once you hear word of the film’s notoriety, summed up by reports of mass-walkouts during its screenings at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, you’ll know whether you’re into it or not, though if the former, you might end up doing a fast 180 once you get around to actually watching the thing.
In fairness to Ellison, he tried: He tried to check his audience’s expectations for the film, he tried to give them an idea of what they were getting into with his work, and, perhaps above all else, he tried to make something totally out there, avant-garde, experimental, wholly unique in the distinguished field of cinema designed to induce vomiting. On the final count, he succeeded. On the others, apparently not, but I can only go by the reaction pieces written during Sundance. Does an “A” for effort really matter if the effort will naturally make huge chunks (pardon) of its audience deeply upset, to the point of suffering a physical reaction from it? Depends on who you ask. You’re here, of course, which means you’re asking me, and as much as I would rather not ever think about “Kuso” again now that I’ve seen it once, I have to admit, I’m impressed. And revolted.
The plot, such as it is, unfolds in bits and recurring sketches, contained within the crippled boundaries of Los Angeles following a catastrophic earthquake that’s left the city in chaos. Ellison’s devices are televisions — normally windows into other worlds, here they’re transportation devices that vault his viewers from one story to the next, then to the next after that, and all the way back to the first, and so on and so forth. Every Los Angeleno we meet on this journey is ailing, infected: They’re peppered with blisters and boils, the product of either an undisclosed epidemic ravaging the populace or, more likely, an artistic statement by Ellison, a remark on the wide and varied sicknesses affecting America. Or something. I’m not saying that this is a solid reading; I’m saying that it’s there if you choose to look for it, and you’re going to have to because, if you don’t, you’ll lose your lunch that much faster.
Your average disaster flick cares more about the disaster itself than the aftermath. “Kuso” is all aftermath. Ellison’s characters are all diseased, but they’re also desperate, each on a quest to rid themselves of the things that figuratively and literally plague them, in particular loneliness and fear. At the same time, the film is frontloaded with juvenile humor and visuals that range from disgusting to deranged to plain old kinetic, delivered to us in a frenzy of anti-orthodox filmmaking and experimental glee. What you get out of “Kuso” will hinge on what you’re willing to bring into it, or your ability to see value in the scatological, the profane, the nonsensical, the inhuman, but it’s hard to knock Ellison for his scruffy artistry and hand-made, DIY aesthetic. For so many reasons, you won’t see a film like “Kuso” in theaters this year, or in any other year. Maybe you can trace a couple of spiritual cousins down the history of the grindhouse and the arthouse, but damn if you’ll find anything that resembles it even halfway.
It’s just as well. The movies might have plenty of room for movies like “Kuso,” but that’s not to say we need more than one movie like it; if nothing else, think of it as a hilariously repugnant curio, the kind of transgressive art you’ll be unable to unpack because you’ll be too busy chugging ginger ale to bother. Chalk this up to a case of “your mileage may vary.” I’m perfectly happy watching sadomasochistic Yakuza douse their victims in tempura oil, and I laughed my ass off at the big, culminating joke of last year’s “Swiss Army Man,” but, lord help me, I couldn’t tolerate “Kuso” for seconds at a time without making myself sick. It might not be my cup of tea, but it might be yours. [C-]