Films of Hisayasu Satô: Vol 3: Kyrie Eleison/Rafureshia/Turtle Vision (Blu-ray)

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*** Résumé en anglais seulement *** A master of combining the macabre with nihilistic and ill-fated character studies of women on the brink of madness, this third volume of THE FILMS OF HISAYASU SATÔ collects a trio of the master filmmaker's most unsettling (and unpredictable) looks at doomed and demented relationships, all newly restored in 2K from their 35mm original camera negatives, under Satô's supervision, and presented by Pink Line on Blu-ray for the first time. Satô's study of the psychosexual world of loneliness, KYRIE ELEISON tells the story of a socially isolated medical researcher who begins a series of bizarre experiments she hopes may heal her boyfriend left comatose after an accident. But as her wild experiments in wiretapping have increasingly violent and masochistic results, the lines between reality and nightmare start to irreparably blur. In RAFURESHIA, Satô takes a much lighter, almost absurdist tone, in this equally bizarre approach to the Pink film, as he explores the interwoven lives of a set of very different women, as each tries to explore and harness their sexuality in the face of unavoidable abuse. Set in an almost fairytale arc, albeit one with incestuous fathers, dominatrixes, and lecherous homeless men, RAFURESHIA plays with mood and comedy with surprising results. Satô updates the tropes of a classic “rape and revenge” drama in the highly voyeuristic TURTLE VISION, as a traumatized young woman grows into a cynical and vengeful adult, focusing her carnal and often bloodthirsty rage on the men who court her. Dramatically photographed with exemplary use of Satô’s fixation on video and TV monitors, the story is framed around a professional cameraman (working for an unknown shadowy outfit) whose work takes him to shoot covert footage of sexual acts.