Will you last 10 minutes? 'Kuso', the most disgusting movie ever made
Filmin premieres in our country the first feature film by the artist and Dj Flying Lotus. During its screening at Sundance, some viewers could not hold out for even "10 minutes."
A steel rod pierces an erect penis. While watching the scene, someone says, "This is art. This is shit. Art is shit." The person who utters this charming syllogism is one of the characters in 'Kuso', the film that critics have described as "the most disgusting film ever made." Pus, blood, feces, urine. The script could list bodily fluids. Mutilations, childbirth, vomiting, parasites in unsuspected orifices. This imaginary of horror is the 'first opera' of the musician and Dj Steven Ellison, known as 'Flying Lotus'.
In 2017, 'Kuso' was screened at the midnight session of the Sundance Festival. Several viewers did not last 10 minutes, according to 'Variety'. "Ten minutes of revulsion with bursting of boils and emanations of pus." The same media collects the Flying Lotus discharge on his Twitter account: "Only 20 people of the 400 who were there left. It was not as dramatic as they make it seem. I tried to warn people." Its premiere in Spain will be next Friday, August 30, in Filmin.
The father of the creature conceived 'Kuso' as an attack against "the culture of beauty installed on Instagram": "I was tired of everything appearing to be so clean, shiny and beautiful. I was fed up with so much terror not recommended to children under 13 years. I wanted to do something that would remind me of those images that seared my brain as a child. Like that scene in 'Robocop' where Murphy is killed and his arms shot off ... I'll never forget that shit. nightmares about that and wanted to do that to someone now. "
Jaume Ripoll, founder and editorial director of Filmin, finds in 'Kuso' a "unique" proposal, beyond the commotion it caused at Sundance: "The film was screened in Sitges and we saw in it something original that is worthwhile. Every movie fan it is different, there are those who can find in those images something exciting and provocative and others who do not. " Like a marathon to the stomach of the spectators. "Filmin's philosophy is to offer something different to the big platforms. The film is not only an original proposal by a musician of the relevance of Flying Lotus, but a challenging and shocking work," explains Ripoll to El Confidencial.
What is 'Kuso' about? "It is very easy to imagine the creators of the film laughing at critics who will try to give meaning to what has none," wrote the 'The Verge' reporter who covered its Sundance premiere. The premise is surprisingly simple: the worst earthquake in history has devastated the city of Los Angeles. Then, a makeshift network of televisions broadcasts what happens to those who survived the earthquake. The film is made up of disconnected tales that only share the particular imagination of its director and the nausea taken to the extreme. Freud would rub his hands.
Ripoll does not think that there is a trend in the general public that accompanies films like Flying Lotus. "Maybe it could be related to what David Cronenberg called 'the new meat." The founder of Filmin refers to the Canadian filmmaker, the forerunner of what has been called 'body horror'. Focused on the decomposition of the body, Cronenberg bases his contemporary terror on a human identity lost amid malformations. Horror has a place in art, nothing new under the sun: bridging the distance, other artists were possessed by the same impulse that underlies 'Kuso' or Cronenberg's 'body horror'.
The rebellion against the hegemony of 'good taste', against the canons of beauty, proportion and balance, was already found in Goya's 'Saturn devouring his son', and in all the premature expressionism of his 'Black Paintings'. Also in Rembrandt's 'Flayed Ox' or in the sectioned eye in 'An Andalusian Dog'. Luis Buñuel explained that he needed "a traumatic shock at the beginning of the film" to purge the mind of the viewer and allow "the free association of ideas" of surrealism. Hence, a close-up of the barber's razor lacerating a cow's eye.
Beyond the cathartic and shocking effect of gore, some authors argue that the 19th century Gothic novel was the precursor of this type of 'body terror'. In Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', sutured skin and muscles shrink the viscera of the reader. In the case of 'Kuso', the decadent plot and absurd humor respond, according to its director, to a rebellion against cleanliness and balance. Flying Lotus elevates the disgusting to an aesthetic category like any other.
In his article 'Hyperbolic ugliness: an aesthetic category of postmodern European cinema', Carlos A. Cuéllar links the exaggeration of ugliness in art with a revolutionary vocation. "Attacking Beauty is not only an aesthetic issue, for this reason the Ugly, in general, and Hyperbolic Uglyism, in particular, have a subversive intention that transcends the purely aesthetic phenomenon and is sometimes linked to political struggle or, as minimum, to a nonconformist attitude with the way of life in the current world. The exaggeration of ugliness as a dominant aesthetic value is a revolutionary artistic contribution that will not end conventional dominant tastes but it will make a place among them ", details the doctor from the University of Valencia.
Deciding if 'Kuso' is an emetic portrait of social decadence, an exponent of ugliness or just a joke in bad taste is left to you. And if your stomach accepts the challenge, we conclude with a list of five other films that could overshadow the creation of Flying Lotus.
'Bad taste', by Peter Jackson
Some aliens invade a town in New Zealand, murder its inhabitants and lock them in boxes to turn them into fast food. Cannibalism and aliens were the ingredients of the director's 'first opera' of 'The Lord of the Rings'. He filmed it in his spare time with the help of his friends and it has become a cult work.
'The Human Centipede 2', by Tom Six
The car of two young Americans breaks down while driving through a forest in Germany. They seek help in an isolated house, where a retired surgeon specializes in separating Siamese twins lives. Tom Six's film takes body horror to the extreme when the German doctor begins to literally build a centipede made out of human beings.
'NEKRomantik', by Jörg Buttgereit
This 1987 film is a classic of the so-called German 'ultragore'. A morgue employee seizes the bodies of car accident victims to take to Betty, his necrophiliac girlfriend. It has often been cited as one of the most disgusting movies ever.
'Hostel' by Eli Roth
It was the first film framed in the 'torture porn' genre, a derivative of gore. Two young Americans travel Europe in search of emotions. When they arrive in Slovakia, they meet Natalya and Svetlana, who will take them to a sinister and gloomy hostel. "It may become a classic for viewers who thought 'Saw II' was for kids," wrote a 'Variety' reviewer.
'Crash', by David Cronenberg
Written and directed by the father of 'the new flesh', this 1996 film is a controversial psychological 'thriller' on its release. It tells the story of a couple who experience symphophilia, a sexual arousal caused by traffic accidents. It is based on the homonymous novel by J. G. Ballard and, despite the hype, it was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
