This message contains major spoilers For “Uzumaki”.
The Picturesque Japanese city of Kurouzu-Cho is the focal point of the acclaimed horror of Junji Ito, “Uzumaki”. When we are presented in Kurouzu-Cho for the first time through the eyes of Kirie high school, its perception of this apparently calm and ordinary city ties us in a false feeling of security. A few seconds later, his boyfriend Shichi breaks this illusion. “I feel dizzy every time I go down on the station’s platform. This city drives me crazy!” Shichi exclaims by holding his head in his hands, visibly unstable by the suffocating air of Kurouzu-Cho.
As the chapters progress, Shuichi’s fears are proven. An obsession with a deadly spiral seizes the inhabitants of the city, starting with the own father of Shuichi, who is fascinated by everything that naturally imitates a spiral. After studying these dizzying patterns (in objects like rolled spirals and Narutomaki) for hours like a devout fanatic, Shuichi’s father goes to his spiral obsession a little further by imitating the shape with his distorted body. This extreme introduction of body horror infiltrates the already heavy atmosphere of the city, infecting anyone in touch with the horrible curse (which seems almost joyfully sensitive in its motive of morphe and corruption).
“Uzumaki” of Ito ventures in horrible absurdities, but this instinct is well suited to manga as a medium, because it allows very detailed worlds to come to life. The monochrome objective through which we see “Uzumaki” is less a limitation, because ito mastery on his horror concepts takes on a haunting quality on paper. When two bodies wrap around the other like snakes, imitating a double propeller (the DNA structure), Ito uses dark ink to accentuate the surrealist nature of the situation. A similar effect is difficult to achieve in live action, in particular with the introduction of color, which deprives the distorted world of immersion and credibility of Ito.
This problem could have been potentially resolved by the monochrome animated series of adult Swim “Uzumaki”, but it turned out to be an insulting and downright botched adaptation at the end. Do not worry, however: we have always “spiral”, the live cinematographic adaptation of 2000 which compensates for its faults by sincerely leaning towards the twisted and illogical nature of “Uzumaki” of Ito.
The spiral is a deliciously twisted and experimental version of ITO Uzumaki
The problems that afflict the adult swimming anime are summed up with unhappy developments behind the scenes, including discussion directors and studios after a promising first of the season. What followed was a cutting -edge work that failed to capture the essence of art evocative of Ito, because the animation lacked care or detail. The result was an adaptation with a shocking and unfinished quality that made all terrible.
This is really disappointing, because the adult swimming series initially had the good idea to translate the monochrome panels of Ito by using the motion capture and the animation helped by CGI, but it ended up thwarting its own potential by compromising quality control. In comparison, the live “spiral” of 2000 appears as a faithful complementary piece competent to the manga of Ito. Although he is unable to recreate the effectiveness of a horror manga because of the limits of live support, this compensates for this by adopting a Lynchian sensitivity which is not afraid to push the limits of what seems terrifying on the screen. Combine this with an effective use of the J-Horror curse, and we have a small, fun and strange film that is closer to the disorienting vertigo that “Uzumaki” evokes.
Just like in the manga, “Spiral” throws Kirie (Eriko Hatsune) and Shuichi (fan of FHI) in a whirlwind of bizarre events, but nothing feels more foreign than the frightening events of the vertebral column in which they were involuntarily swept. Here, a woman traumatized by the spiral curse stabs her own ears because the cochlea (inner ear) is a spiral cavity, while Kirie’s steep hair grow and constantly mutate to form sensitive and nutrient spirals. But even it is less shocking than the culmination of the fate of Kurouzu-Cho, because we soon realize that there is no hope in this deterioration of the desert. In “Uzumaki” and “Spiral”, humans give in to their cable tendency to self-destruction.
Although “Spiral” does not fully satisfy the itching for a competent “Uzumaki” adaptation, he holds up by shaping a deliciously eccentric identity – one that echoes the best impulses of Ito as an artist.
