R100 (2013): An Ode to Sadomasochist Joy
I went into R100 knowing it was based around a Dominatrix club and a Japanese salesman. But I am not the same person I was before seeing what this film had to offer. I am aware of just how absurd Japanese films can get with its comedy. Films like “We Are Little Zombies” (2019), “Like a Dragon” (2007), and “Wood Job” (2014) being films that showcase the wild places Japan is willing to go to get laughs.
Matsumoto titled the film as a play on the Japanese rating system. As NC-17 films in America would be considered R18 in Japan, which indicates that ‘those under 18-years-old should not see the film.’ That being said, R100’s namesake means that those under 100-years-old should not see the film. In other words, only 100-year-olds could understand the film and find pleasure in watching it.
To say this film is absurd is not doing director Matsumoto Hitoshi justice. Starring Ōmori Nao as the modest salesman Katayama Takafumi, we see his struggles with dealing with his comatosed wife’s declining health. We’re introduced to him as we follow a woman who had just exited a restaurant's restroom and sat with him as he spoke about Beethoven and his music “Ode to Joy.” The woman is uninterested and eventually stands up to round-house kick Katayama in the nose.
As jarring as this intro is to the film, we’re quickly caught up with what is happening. Katayama has gone to a S&M company named “Bondage” (very on the nose, eh?) in search for pleasure or some form of enlightenment. He signs a year-long contract they make clear can not be broken, and after the dominatrix start catching him in more and more personal settings (his job, home), he starts a quest to end his bond with this company that leads to more insanity.
Critic Simon Abrams described this film as “a comedy that tries to alienate you.” But we as the audience are actually able to reconnect through an intorduction to a Japanese censor committee. This is art of the beauty of R100, a film that insists on its nonsense and gets away with it.
We see a diverse group before getting a buzzer noise and a transition mimicking a film reel with the title displayed. We cut back and forth to these ways in a fantastic method of connecting the audience back to the film. As the group is censor committee and they are watching the film we are, who in the film world is directed by a 100-year-old man. This revelation reveals the irony and culmination of the film’s avoidance of a clear-cut and cohesive plot.
It is a wild ride, fantastical and bizarre tale where nothing truly matters except pleasure. My only problem with R100 is that I did not get to see it with the crowd at Sundance.
-Davis Brooks
