Japanese filmmaker Kenichi Ugana’s extremist satire on the pursuit of perfection will make the audience wince, but left wanting more.
“Because you like chairs.”
There can be an incredible comfort in watching an expert simply work their magic in their trade. “Competency porn” is a real thing, and there’s something to be said about someone who goes above and beyond to be good at something, rather than phone it in and do the bare minimum. Curiously, serial killers can be the most obsessive and meticulous experts of them all, which is part of the reason that process-based murderers are so popular. It’s one thing for a killer’s craft to be deemed “art” in a figurative sense, but this all becomes infinitely more interesting when these murders are literally turned into a piece of art that’s meant to be admired and used, which is the case in Kenichi Ugana‘s Incomplete Chairs.
Incomplete Chairs is a disturbing, satirical commentary on auteurism, consumerism, and a society that’s perpetually interested in status and artisanal products, where price and scarcity automatically dictate quality, and reduces a person’s value down to their art. It’s a film about refusing to come to terms with the reality that perfection is not possible, but that this is okay, rather than something to painstakingly obsess over until it takes over your life. That’s self-destructive in any scenario, but especially when that meticulous behavior stems from grisly murders.Kenichi Ugana’s latest is a vicious, unflinching, uncomfortably funny look at how the pursuit of perfection can so easily fester into a bloodcurdling cry for help.
It’s as if Takashi Miike’s Audition, American Psycho, and Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal were torn to pieces and then fashioned into a horrifying chair, which is fitting for a movie about a serial killer who turns his victims into chairs. Shinsuke (Ryu Ichinose), a chair artist, meets with chair obsessives and experts, only to kill them and use their parts for his raw materials until he finally engineers the “perfect” chair. Meanwhile, Shinsuke concocts a piece of furniture that looks like it would make Leatherface wince. Incomplete Chairs, with the blackest of humor, uses Shinsuke’s revolting art to poke fun at the idea of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, even if the art is made out of eyes.
It’s exactly the type of short story you’d find in a Junji Ito collection that endlessly doubles down on an upsetting concept until the audience has practically gone numb to this absurdist insanity. Incomplete Chairs doesn’t have the luxury of Ito’s unbelievable artwork to fall back on and instead turns to blunt brutalism to disorient and disturb. Shinsuke prides himself on professionalism, yet the film has the crude energy of a bunch of Hostel characters trying to put together IKEA furniture.
Ichinose has the perfect disarming intensity for Shinsuke that can evaporate at a moment’s notice. It’s a chilling performance that’s simultaneously subtle and broad. It deserves to be in the same discussion as Christian Bale’s work as Patrick Bateman. Shinsuke repeatedly poses the question, “If there’s a ten-thousand yen chair and a one-million yen chair, which one would you sit on?” to his victims, moments before he eviscerates them. It’s unlikely that any potential answer would actually sate Shinsuke and prevent these deaths. It’s fitting that Shinsuke enters and exits the film in busy crowd shots, as if to indicate that anyone could be this caliber of killer and that Shinsuke isn’t anything special. He’s just a face in a crowd, and there could just as easily be five other Shinsukes in the mob, which is the most terrifying part of all this.
Part of the fun with Incomplete Chairs stems from the fact that it exists in a ridiculous, heightened world where everyone is obsessed with chairs. Everyday individuals casually engage in philosophical discussions about a chair’s true nature. Over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek dialogue feeds into this chair artist auteur universe and becomes the film’s saving grace by not taking itself too seriously. Despite some structural concessions, the odd energy and the chemistry between characters make sure that it remains engaging, even if there are some lumps in this chair that could be smoothed out. To this point, the film taps into a subversive rom-com element that works for it. The film juxtaposes sweet dates with bloody wetwork. Incomplete Chairs just makes the audience complicit from the start, unlike Miike’s Audition. Also, let’s be honest, Audition works as well as it does because the killer who gets revenge is a female. It’s not the same when it’s yet another man who attacks an innocent woman.
What’s so fascinating about Shinsuke is that his entire life revolves around chairs, but there’s a distinct possibility that he’s completely indifferent to this furniture. It’s not that he’s obsessed over the artistry and minutiae of chairs, but more so that they’re the means to an end for someone who is thrilled by murder and dismemberment. Chairs are just what was convenient for Shinsuke. They’re the artifice. They’re the upholstery that hides his true material. These murders would still be happening, regardless of the excuse that’s used to rationalize this behavior. Ironically, many of Shinsuke’s victims care more about chairs and furniture than he does. However, Shinsuke would argue that he’s the one who is more committed to his craft.
This is compelling material to explore that forces the audience to spend so much time with a reprehensible individual. The problem is that this all does fall into a bit of a cyclical pattern that feels like splatter, rinse, repeat. Incomplete Chairs certainly provides an extensive, unfiltered look into Shinsuke, but the audience gets a pretty good idea of what’s going on here from the start, only to spin its wheels. To some extent, it feels like Incomplete Chairs is meant to be a grueling exercise in endurance, akin to something like The House That Jack Built. The discomfort is the point. Incomplete Chairs doesn’t feel as precise in this regard and has the energy of a short film that’s generously padded.
Shinsuke’s kills aren’t remarkable. They’re routine. There are long, repetitive shots of Shinsuke breaking bodies, almost as if he’s bored by these massacres. His executions are presented like monotonous grunt work that’s a menial task and a means to an end, not the end of a person’s life. Yet, this passionless work is meant to breed perfection. The nature of Shinsuke’s kills is brutal, but one can’t help but laugh at how haphazard and reckless they become, even verging on broad parody. Alternatively, the brutality of Shinsuke’s handiwork is honestly a little too much at times and difficult to endure. There’s a “sanding” scene that involves bone removal that’s more intense than the grisliest Saw trap. The sound design alone is enough to make the faint of heart vomit or pass out. It’s sadistically violent and strives to provoke.
Incomplete Chairs explores rich themes and communicates its ideas in an extremely aggressive manner, which makes it all the more disappointing that the film’s disjointed pieces don’t accumulate to a more satisfying and cohesive piece of art. It’s ironic, or perhaps even intentional, that a film about a perfectionist struggles to stick its landing and is burdened by so many flaws. Kenichi Ugana’s Incomplete Chairs, just like Shinsuke’s chairs, are brutal, extreme, and unforgettable, but they’re also both imperfect and plagued by their own standards and expectations.
Incomplete Chairs screened at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival; release info TBD.
