Well, I just finished watching this Coffin Joe entry on IFC and got a kick out of it. Crazy movie where talking heads converse over how "Brazilian" society is under a moral collapse due to drugs and how the use of such provokes depravity and sadism. A series of stories, or various ways taboos can be tap-danced on with relish, alternate how characters do immoral things to each other..such as these sweaty men paying for a prostitute's method of defecation over a pot, how a group of hipsters fondle a school girl before murdering her with a stick in an act of indecency, a movie producer giving an actress seeking work the "casting couch" treatment whacking off as his pal rapes her, an act of adultery where the cheating woman alternates between pleasure and guilt over what she's doing as the grinning male has his way with her, a wealthy wife looks on as her black butler gives her daughter oral sex, etc. While not explicit, these stories are still lurid enough, photographed in B&W, and used as examples at moral decay with drugs being labeled the culprit. We have a psychiatric doctor interested in what actually provokes such behavior and seeks four volunteers for taking LSD recording their reactions using the image of Coffin Joe as a catalyst in tapping into the subconscious. The first hour is that collection of stories, and the final thirty minutes is the madness that is Coffin Joe running rampant in the nightmarish realm of these four selected "victims". The "hallucinations" are filmed in experimental colors and feature some pretty bizarre visuals like women being subjected to embarrassing ordeals, Joe often appearing and disappearing blowing flame from his hands(!), with those "invaded" by Joe baring witness to the frenzy of deranged images which pop up. My favorite image was of the women being knocked silly by Joe, landing at the feet of one volunteer as they kiss his feet. Another bizarre image I found memorable was the one volunteer(..the girl who defecated in the opening of this film)who is "bombarded" with marks of blood, smidgens here and there until she is covered.
Oh, and there's this "game show" where Marins, as himself(..although the media and panel tend to refer to him as the evil character of Joe, perhaps a statement that some critics can not separate the creator from his creation), is subjected to a panel who question his art. This is witnessed by the psychiatrist who is inspired to run his "LSD test" using the character of Joe in his experiment.
The group discussing the effects of drugs on the people also includes Marins, which makes this rather odd. The climactic scene puts everything into perspective, and is a nice sense of irony. I think, also, that this was ahead of the curve in that one might look at how the media and public at large indict horror and music, in this day and age, as channels for evil which only encourage those to commit crimes and perversion. Perhaps Marins film will actually thwart that..we ourselves are behind the things committed in the movie, not some created character in a film or a comic book.
Oh, and there's this "game show" where Marins, as himself(..although the media and panel tend to refer to him as the evil character of Joe, perhaps a statement that some critics can not separate the creator from his creation), is subjected to a panel who question his art. This is witnessed by the psychiatrist who is inspired to run his "LSD test" using the character of Joe in his experiment.
The group discussing the effects of drugs on the people also includes Marins, which makes this rather odd. The climactic scene puts everything into perspective, and is a nice sense of irony. I think, also, that this was ahead of the curve in that one might look at how the media and public at large indict horror and music, in this day and age, as channels for evil which only encourage those to commit crimes and perversion. Perhaps Marins film will actually thwart that..we ourselves are behind the things committed in the movie, not some created character in a film or a comic book.