Experiments in Weirdness Episode One: Flower and Snake (1974)

In this series, "Experiments in Weirdness," I will examine the weirder, darker corners of filmmaking. I do not mean anything negative by calling these films "weird". Many of the films will be artistic, short films by serious and respected artists. Others will be utter trash.

What I have done is to create a list you can find here:

Random Weirdness Generator https://boxd.it/cUdCo

I will randomly select a film from this list and watch it. Mostly I will try to provide my real-time comments.

I have watched many on the list already, this is the first movie that I responded to on a deeper level.

I do not seek to judge, but to explore:

Real-time thoughts and beyond for Flower and Snake.

A rich dude hires a salaryman to train his wife to be subservient/submissive to BDSM roles.

This is the basic plot of the film, but it turns out, that isn't what it's about.

It's completely reprehensible and I feel like I need a shower for enjoying it but it's kind of funny in a messed up sort of way. It has a sardonic, dry, satirical wit to it.

With this film we are officially off the beaten path...

So I have the dubious privilege of seeing where hentai tropes come from. Lovely.

And then it swerves to comedy again. This is... Unbelievable.

But wow the ending if this movie was an interesting turn. It's about learning to confront past trauma, move past it, and leave toxic people aside.

I was not ready for this picture.

Wow. It's also about how the submissive in a BDSM relationship is rhe one with the real power. Holy crap. I was ready to write this off as completely reprehensible especially for its use of forced/nonconsensual sex but it managed to redeem itself. Quite the rare beast indeed.

Better love story than Twilight. Or Fifty Shades of Grey for that matter.

I realize my thoughts here are not overly verbose or long-winded. Can be a good or bad thing but just as the film is a scant 70 minutes or so, also is its point briefly and most brevitously made.

It kind of smacks you over the head with the solution to Makoto's problem which is dichotomous in nature; he is impotent and also suffers of anxiety, due to his mother's toxic hold over him.

While one reading of the use of forced and non-consensual sex is that Shizuko (and women in general) deep inside want to be dominated, that they just need "the right man" to give them what they want, I think there is a power dynamic at play here that is the most important factor in any good BDSM story, because it holds true in every successful BDSM relationship.

It's a factor that the afore-mentioned 50 Shades misses completely and part of why it fails as a BDSM story. Namely, that the submissive has the power in a proper relationship. The submissive says the safe word, which ends all play of it goes too far.

And by the end of the film (and I think she also realized this at the beginning as well), Shizuko realizes that because these men desire her, she holds power over them. A powerful statement at a time of shifting cultural norms all over the world.