Considering that Tetsuo: The Iron Man opens with a graphic image of a person slicing open his thigh and shoving a metal rod into the wound, it may seem odd to say that the sound design disturbed me the most. Yet between the metallic scraping, near-constant screaming, and clanging Chu Ishikawa score (which sounds as if rods have been inserted in between the notes), the film’s audio jolted me as much as the imagery. Listed only in the credits as the Metal Fetishist (and played by writer-director-editor-effects-artist Shin’ya Tsukamoto), the man with the metal rod is hit by a car immediately following his self-surgery attempt. After the driver (Tomoro Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara) hide the Metal Fetishist’s body in the woods, guilt overwhelms the driver to the point that his bizarre nightmares (including one in which his girlfriend assaults him with a mechanical dildo) bleed into his waking life. Starting with metal hairs on his face that spurt blood when he shaves, his physiology gradually transforms into machinery. Fair warning: Tetsuo: The Iron Man is only to be watched if you have room in your life for the sight of the driver’s penis transmogrified into a drill. Although personally, I had a harder time with the sound of the Metal Fetishist spinning that rod between his teeth.
(6/9/2022)
