Women’s Flesh – My Red Guts is an extreme Japanese body horror film. But to be honest, I’m not really sure how body horror should be defined. Is it a movie where injuries to the body are in focus? It can’t be that easy – right? There must be something revolting about it as well and there must be a painful experience. Is it necessary to feel with the person getting subjected to physical harm? In my mind, all kinds of splatter movies are excluded as the violence, even if it’s to the body, is so over-the.top that it creates a comedic effect.
There’s nothing entertaining about Women’s Flesh – My Red Guts Women’s Flesh – My Red Guts, or the violence in it. It’s extreme to be sure but there is never any doubt that it’s made to be painful rather than entertaining. Another thing that is painful is the pacing but more on that later.
The premise of Women’s Flesh – My Red Guts is a story about a woman getting abandoned by her boyfriend or husband. It’s a devastating blow for her and her reaction is to go into the bathroom and violently start to masturbate with a toothbrush. Because that is the natural thing to do if you get abandoned – right? Well, I certainly hope that the irony comes across. It’s so illogical that it’s not even comprehensible.
It’s a slow and tedious watch. We understand that this will not go well and that she is going to hurt herself in one way or another. For once the blurring of genitalia as the rules dictate in Japanese films works to some advantage. It kind of looks like there is actual penetration, but since the blur is there it might be easier to hide the special effects. Obviously the more violent and bloodletting parts are special effects anyway, but it looks very believable. The blood pours from her vagina and if it weren’t so painfully slow and boring it would be revolting for sure.
As the premise is obvious from the beginning, we know that this is only the beginning, that the selfmutilation will continue and that whatever remains will be a shadow of the former woman. But what is strange is that when we enter the next scene the previous injuries seem to be gone. Now we’re focusing on another bodypart with the same kind of slow boring pace. At the same time we kind of sit on needles because we don’t know when the inevitable will come. We know that she will bite her finger off or stab herself with the fork, or cut herself with a knife, but the scenes are so long and repetitive that we have a hard time keeping focus.
There are a few more scenes, and you could argue that the selfmutilation gets worse every time, but the previous injuries are miraculously cured each time. Should we interpret this as a metaphor for the mental torment she feels after she got abandoned? Is it a story where Catharsis is in focus? Well, in either case, I think it’s a failure. I got a little disturbed by the self torture but for the most part it was so tedious that I had a hard time keeping focus.
