R100 (2013)

It’s Japanese and it’s about S&M—do I even have to tell you that it’s weirder than nipple rings on a kitten? It follows the fumblings and bumblings of a straight-arrow working stiff (Nao Ohmori) who happens to love the sweet sensation of submission, along with bondage and beatings from latex clad women. He signs up for a yearlong membership with a kinky club who send out dominatrixes, of all shapes and sizes, to show up in his life at random times to humiliate him. Without warning, they’ll do it in private, they’ll do it in public, they’ll do it while he’s visiting someone in the hospital. After awhile he begins to have regrets, but director Hitoshi Matsumoto doesn’t feel bad about a thing here. The film runs with the comedy of the situation and eventually trips into high absurdity, throws reality out the window, achieves some great uncomfortable laughs and reaches a strange poignancy. One of the clever touches here is that the film always tells us when our masochist is aroused via a CGI effect that momentarily expands his face so that he looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid (it’s a cartoon-like effect in a cartoon-like movie). Every time we think that things have gone too far, we find out that our hero has a hard-on, no debate necessary. It’s there whether he wants it or not. Life is complicated, but an erection is simple. Sounds like a life lesson to me.