Written/Directed by Shozin Fukui
Music by Tanizaki Tetora
Starring
Yota Kawase as Shimika
Nao as Kiku
Norimitsu Ameya as Hitotsubashi
Sasuke Saito as Motomiya
Mika Kunihiro as Akari
Ziko Uchiyama as Tanizaki
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Review by William D. Tucker.
Rubber’s Lover begins with cold-blooded reptilian machinations. We proceed to indulge hot-blooded mammalian hysteria. We shall end in a higher state of consciousness that merely costs us our place in mainstream employable society.
Sinister businessmen coolly discuss forbidden human experimentation. Basically, they’ve been bankrolling a secret research project that’s trying to use extreme sound amplification to unlock psychic powers in the human brain. The mad scientists in charge of this endeavor have set up shop in one of those abandoned yet meticulously art directed industrial warehouse type of places that countless low budget genre pictures depend upon for hideouts, shootouts, martial arts battles, and shadowy horror scenarios. Rubber’s Lover is an unusually ambitious demonstration of how low budget filmmakers can conjure tension, dread, and production value by precisely framing, lighting, and dressing existing locations. Everything you see exists. No computer graphics. Pay special attention to how this movie exploits the big freight elevator whenever it’s on screen.
But let’s not forget the human element. The early passages include scenes of mostly men and one woman in business attire delivering perfunctory dialogue about mundane responsibilities: project oversight, plans for marriage, scheduling stuff. Even the mad scientists are sensibly dressed, and speak calmly. In the fullness of time, everyone is gibbering madly, ripping their clothes off, and manifesting X-Men levels of psychic powers. All of this is brilliantly played by committed actors, who infuse much of the running time with a building sense of hysterical agitation. Something is constantly bubbling beneath the surface which the mad science gimmicks exist to catalyze into bursting forth from some howlingly repressed id. Much of Rubber’s Lover is about people locked inside a terrible place losing their minds. Two of the scenes are so violent and awful you may decide to stop watching. I wouldn’t blame you if you did even though I do admire this film.
Ultimately, the depravity spirals beyond the control of business and politics. If there’s a lesson here it seems to have to do with desire and power. Those who desire power the most are also the most likely to abuse it and be consumed by it. The only character of consequence who survives is the one who wanted nothing to do with the results of the sonic experiments. But none are left unaffected by the power that is unleashed.
I should also mention that Rubber’s Lover is a thematic sequel to 964 Pinocchio, a film exploring abandoned sex slaves adrift in train stations and shopping districts in early 1990s Tokyo. Both are written and directed by Shozin Fukui, however they are not related in terms of literal plot points or shared cinematic universe continuity minutiae. 964 Pinocchio’s most memorable scenes contrast antisocial outsider characters against crowds of clueless consumers and employees creating tension around how long the weirdos will be tolerated before getting swept under the rug. Rubber’s Lover is a more conventional genre film in its use of a contained, claustrophobic setting but the intensity of the characters’ hysteria is dialed up to eleven. 964 Pinocchio has some rough technical aspects, but its core pair of protagonists are endearingly strange. Rubber’s Lover is a technical masterwork of low budget filmmaking, but we are kept at an emotional distance from the characters. I think this distancing works for the harsh scenario, but it did make it somewhat less memorable for me than 964 Pinocchio. I was amused that Rubber’s Lover had scenes in which people inexplicably explode into powder which may have been an homage to 1986’s Death Powder, another example of what people have come to think of as Japanese cyberpunk. Rubber’s Lover even has a few scenes suggesting psychic transference of consciousness from one brain to another which also evokes the theme of newly innovated upon life cycles in Death Powder.
Rubber’s Lover isn’t especially convinced by the proverbial thin veneer of civilization. This is one of those movies that glories in perverse and shocking behavior well past the limits of contemporary Hollywood horror movies. Rubber’s Lover is an actual horror movie, expertly filmed, edited, scored, acted, and directed, not ersatz streaming crap. It may not be for everyone, but it is exactly what it wants to be.
