Film
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‘THEY SHOULD STITCH HIS MOUTH TO THE ASS OF A FAT TRUCK DRIVER’ Hitlist THE BEST FILM & DVD RELEASES*
✽✽ The Illusionist Beautiful animated feature set in 1950s Edinburgh, based on an unmade script by Jacques Tati about a wandering magician. See review, page 104. GFT, Glasgow; Cameo, Edinburgh, & selected release, Fri 20 Aug. ✽✽ Scott Pilgrim vs The World Fittingly inventive and frenetic film adaptation of popular comic book and video game. See review, page 104. General release, Wed 25 Aug. ✽✽ Mother Immaculately realised South Korean thriller in which a mother tries to clear her son’s name. See Also Released, page 105. Cameo, Edinburgh, from Fri 20 Aug. ✽✽ The Secret in Their Eyes Brilliant twisty turny ‘cold case’ Argentine thriller. GFT, Glasgow, until Thu 26 Aug & Filmhouse, Edinburgh, until Thu 9 Sep. ✽✽ Le Refuge Unfussy tale of drugs, death and unexpected pregnancy. Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Tue 24 Aug. ✽✽ Villa Amalia Affective escape and rejuvenation fable. GFT, Glasgow, Tue 24–Thu 26 Aug. ✽✽ Toy Story 3 Box office gold. General release, out now. ✽✽ Went the Day Well? Restored print of Alberto Cavalcanti’s oddly subversive 1942 drama about a cosy English village under Nazi attack. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 20–Mon 23 Aug. ✽✽ They Made Me a Fugitive Second of two restored Alberto Cavalcanti films, this dark thriller set in London’s postwar criminal underworld is ripe for rediscovery. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Wed 25 & Thu 26 Aug. ✽✽ The Gold Rush Chaplin’s 1925 silent classic in extras heavy DVD re-issue. See review. page 113. Out now (Park Circus). 19–26 Aug 2010 THE LIST 103
Committing insecticide Henry Northmore meets Dutch writer/director Tom Six to talk about his stomach-churning new film
I t’s become harder to shock contemporary cinema audiences. Films such as Hostel or Saw have taken graphic violence to such an extreme that it takes an ingenious filmmaker to make a feature where even the concept is enough to trigger the gag reflex. Step forward Tom Six and The Human Centipede (First Sequence): ‘It’s about a deranged retired surgeon, who used to separate Siamese twins, and he now wants to perform the reverse – he wants to attach people together, sewing them mouth to anus to create one digestive system.’
It’s also a procedure Six promises is medically accurate. ‘I approached a surgeon in Holland and at first he said: “Tom, you’re crazy. I’m not going to work with you, it goes against the Hippocratic oath,” but he’s a real big movie fan, so after a while he called me and said: “OK I’ll help, but I want to do it anonymously.”’ He went on to design the gruesome procedure used in the film. ‘He came up with the idea of taking the skin flaps from the buttocks and attaching them to the cheeks so it would have a firm grip, because otherwise it might rip. So it is medically possible to sew people together like this.’ It’s a genuinely nauseating premise, but like most workers in the field of horror Six is amusing, easygoing and instantly likable. ‘It’s from a sick joke I made one time when we saw a child molester on television and I said, “They should stitch his mouth to the ass of a very fat truck driver as a punishment,”’ he explains in his thick Dutch accent. ‘That idea kept coming into my head and I thought, that’s a great universal idea for a horror film.’
Unsurprisingly, Six counts David Cronenberg (particularly The Brood, Shivers and Crash) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo as influences. ‘In art you have to find the boundaries, that’s the big challenge,’ adds Six. ‘A film can never go too far because it’s not real. In real life so many things happen that are so disgusting, but the imagination must always go as broad as it can.’ It’s the deliberately cold and calculated performance from Dieter Laser (pictured) as the insane Dr Heiter that gives the film its grim realism. Laser, a classic method actor, provided his own clothes for the character, brought his own food to set and ate alone, away from the rest of the cast and crew. That he was German was also an intentional move from Six. ‘I read a lot of books about Nazi doctors so I really wanted a German Nazi-like doctor to play the villain.’ The film has received some extreme reactions, with vomiting and walk-outs at film festival screenings, but if you think (First Sequence) is an uncomfortable viewing experience, wait until part two, (Full Sequence), which has already started shooting in London. ‘It’s going to be 12 people attached to each other. Everything I didn’t show in part one I will show in part two. Part one is My Little Pony compared to part two,’ laughs Six with obvious devilish glee.
The Human Centipede (First Sequence), selected release, Fri 20 Aug. See review, www.list.co.uk/articles/film