Tetsuo: The Iron Man has always been infamous for being a unique, gut-wrenching experience, but no amount of talk could have prepared me for what I endured. It is so painful to watch that I have no words to accurately describe it. It has the aesthetic of nails on a chalkboard, and a soundtrack that quite literally sounds like that. It plays out like a cruel trick on its audience, daring you to watch further. And if you get used to the choppy black and white 16 millimeter, stop-motion style, you will never get used to seeing what is happening on screen. Just when you think you've seen the worst of it, Tsukamoto ups the ante, and twists the knife he has imbedded in your soul just a little more.

To get a little exposition out, Tetsuo is about a guy whose body is gradually turning into machine. It doesn't sound all that bad now, but the metamorphosis is so painful, not only for the protagonist, Salaryman (Tomoroh Taguchi), but for the audience as well. All the complexities of this transformation come into play in a twisted nightmare that one cannot imagine having. What a deranged and restless sleep director, Shinya Tsukamoto must have.

Critics have compared Tetsuo: The Iron Man to David Lynch's Eraserhead, but there are only several weak similarities. Eraserhead was in black and white, had low budget values, was bizarre, and it was difficult to tolerate. But where Eraserhead is thoughtful, slow, and intentional, Tetsuo is nothing but an assault. It is more along the lines of E. Elias Merhige's silent masterpiece Begotten than it is anything else, although even that too, is a stretch of comparison.

After watching Tetsuo, I sat down and watched a later Tsukamoto effort titled A Snake of June. This later effort seems much more mature and restrained, not to mention more intelligent and well crafted. But it is also in a similar vein to Tetsuo. It seems as though Tsukamoto is attempting to carve himself his own little niche in not only Japan , but in movie history worldwide. His vision is unique and relentless, and I look forward to seeing more from him. He has proved that he is an ambitious filmmaker, and it is to his credit that Tetsuo existed as his debut with the intention of mere shock, as it is a goal he successfully achieved. That his later work shows thought and skill, only adds credence to validity of this, his first picture. It is a marvelous exercise in cinematic intolerance.