Claudio Carvalho In Tokyo, the twelve year-old girl Mitsuko accidentally sees her parents having sex in their bedroom and her dysfunctional and pervert father Ozawa Gozo, who is the principal of her school, forces her to see her mother Sayuri having intercourse with him hidden inside a cello case. Then Osawa rapes Mitsuko and forces her mother to see the incestuous intercourse with their daughter. Osawa lives with Mitsuko and Sayuri and has sex with them, and Sayuri is jealous of her own daughter. The dysfunctional family is affected first by a murder and then by an attempt of suicide. But the bizarre story is actually a novel written by the disabled writer Taeko that uses a wheelchair to move. When her publisher visits her with his new hire Yuji, he gets close to her and helps Taeko to find the truth about her past. But in the end, which one is the dream?"Kimyô na Sâkasu", a.k.a. "Stranger Circus", is a disturbing, sick, bizarre but also absolutely original film by Shion Sono. The acting, direction and cinematography are top notch and the challenging plot is unpredictable, with many twists and inconclusive, and it is almost impossible to make a comment without spoiler. I love this type of movie, but I do not dare to recommend it for average viewers. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): Not Available

plsletitrain The movie is weird, insane, controversial, challenging and as the title itself says, strange. I was preparing my brain to watch this because after reading the reviews, I knew I'm up for a good psychological thriller. And yes, to anyone who hasn't seen this yet, you should set your mind that you'll be watching a masterpiece. This will set your bars higher for psychological thriller movies. You need to focus and go beyond the erotic scenes if only to find out that this movie is well-crafted, well-thought, and well-directed one. This branch of movie-making(what they refer to as ero-gro) has kinda grown on me. Perfected by a montage of scenes and a puzzle of events integrated for a quest to bind the movie to a whole, make sure you don't miss a scene. The movie features a play of scene-shifting..luring and confusing the viewers which is a plus for those who have short attention span. From a sex scene you are then transported to a circus ride, cut to a girl who becomes her mother, to a picture of a lifeless naked woman, to a bunch of circus performers, and I could go on and on. This movie is an extremist one. It will show the sex scenes leaving nothing to imagination, steeled by realistic moans and very accurate portrayal by the actors. If the story can't keep you up, the amount of sex will. It will also show extreme levels of no-holds-barred morbidity, goriness and insanity. It also depicts extreme levels of themes only a masterpiece could feature. Actually, I found the movie creepy. No there are no white ghosts or jump scares on this one, but creepy in a way that you would start questioning the sanity of the director. He's not human. Gathering the viewers' attention through a sequence of events that could possibly be the worst thing that could happen to a family, the movie caters to viewers of every genre, of any age. What I actually find appalling is having a minor(the girl who played young Mitsuko) play the part of having to witness and digest such morbid scenes. Isn't that disturbing to begin with? The premise of the film as a psycho-thriller is to bring out the inquisitive, theoretical selves of the watchers. You start questioning why did such scene happen? Why did such character say those lines? Which one was the dream? Which one was reality? What's the bigger picture? Who's who? Who's THE ultimate character? This movie is a challenge. And the ending steeled it. The movie possesses the basic protocols of good movie-making; that is, a good beginning to introduce the conflict and hold the viewers' attention, a climax which highlights the main conflict/s and leaving a handful of questions to our minds, and a surreal ending that will answer these questions(not to mention leave us dumbfounded). I can't even write a synopsis of the movie. Just thinking of writing it seems very exhaustive. I can't put into words the details of the movie. That's how complicated and well-developed the story is. Story-telling won't do. The themes of the movie are also as disturbing as the scenes itself. Incest is the most noticeable theme of the movie. But the inclusion of other minimal themes (but still disturbing as they are) such as dismemberment, revenge, self-denial and what appears to be schizophrenic characters all add to the complexity of the movie. Hell even the soundtrack was creepily weird. What brought this movie to its high level though was the acting. Its like everything just fell into place. A deep story and stellar acting from the cast(especially Masumi Miyazaki who perfectly played 3 personas), this movie is undeniably a masterpiece. 10/10.

Scarecrow-88 Strange indeed. Shion Sono's bizarre STRANGE CIRCUS focuses on whether or not the repulsive subject matter of a woman's novel is in fact an autobiograph of her past or mere fantasy warping her sense of reality..seeping into everyday life she begins having a hard time dictating fiction from reality. Masumi Miyazaki is Sono's figurepoint. Rie Kuwana is a twelve year old girl sexually molested by her monstrous school principal father, often forced into a cello case with a peep hole so she must watch her parents making passionate love. Even though Kuwana(as Mitsuko) and her father are found by mother Sayuri(Miyazaki), nothing derives from it! Sayuri doesn't even respond after finding her husband and daughter in bed together! Instead, Sayuri begins to compete with her daughter for the father's love! Sayuri begins beating Mitsuko when papa is away. When Mitsuko defends herself over a missing earing, the result Sayuri falling down a flight of steps, the movie eventually shifts to novelist Taeko(also Miyazaki)and her assistant Yûji(Issei Ishida), who tends to her every need and whim. Yûji is aloof and practically zombie-like in his devotion to Taeko and ability to withstand insults in regards to his lack of a libido. Yûji may very well be hiding a secret, revealed without our knowledge to a group of body modification addicts. While directed with assured and mad skill by the director, I have to admit that I hated every minute of this movie because of its sickening subject matter. I could barely keep watching as the opening of the film completely places us into the story of a little girl and her abuse at the hands of a beastly father. And this bastard's sexual activities in front of her, not to mention, the mother who doesn't get her daughter out of this environment when the goings good. Thank goodness the director doesn't show explicit activity between father and daughter, opting to use a creative psychological method(the daughter narratively comments that she and her mother are the same, one, and so actress Miyazaki instead takes her place as the woman made love to)to get out of it. There's still plenty of sex, startlingly soft-core, but the little girl's abuse is implied which is a relief. That said, the director accomplished what he set out to obviously do, hit the viewer between the eyes and never let go. Whether or not you have a tolerance for the material and its characters will determine if you like STRANGE CIRCUS or not. Sono successfully carries us right into novelist Taeko's madness right until the very end. I can't deny this movie's power, but I don't have to like what I see, either.

yozkan002 This movie is about a young girl who is the victim of (violent and gory) parental abuse. Later the story focuses on the female writer of the girl's stories who may or may not have been involved with them personally.Incoherent and haphazard scenes have been thrown in to suggest flashbacks between reality and fantasy. Plenty of blood and blood-stained interiors have been used to heighten the drama without achieving this aim and becoming comical. Weak acting, weak scenario, emphasis on unnecessary gory scenes unrelated to the plot. Cannot recommend this film.