Kenichi Ugana has been quite prolific lately, turning in film after film since 2019, having already reached six, which, even more impressively, differ quite significantly from each other. In “Extraneous Matter”, a movie which is a longer version of a homonymous short he shot in 2020, he implements a manga/anime-like approach, with the characteristic sexual fantasy tentacles that are frequently met in hentai playing a key role, in a setting though, that seems like a Japanese version of a Jarmusch setting.
Extraneous Matters is screening at Nippon Connection
The narrative has an episodic nature, focusing on the lives of a series of different people, as they get completely upside down by the appearance of a mysterious octopus-like alien race, who eventually is found in a number of households. In the first part, a young woman who lives a mundane, filled with routine life finds herself enjoying extreme pleasure by the tentacles of the creature, which eventually proceeds on satisfying her girlfriends and even her boyfriend, whom, before, he just seemed to watch TV and eat at her house and then leave. The creature then appears in the bag of a young man in a bar, with a friend of his commenting on his cuteness before they treat it to ice cream. The workers in a factory also find themselves dealing with one, taking care of it and trying to protect it from the authorities, who have gotten wind of their presence and are trying to eradicate them. One young man among them even understands the sounds the creatures makes, proceeding on feeding it (but not spicy food) and offering it cigarettes to smoke. The finale takes place in a bar again, where a different kind of creature appears.
Kenichi Ugana directs a very stylized film, filled with titillating perversity, humor, and a couple of very interesting social comments. The stylization derives from a number of factors. The monochrome cinematography by Masashi Komino in combination with his framing, particularly in the scenes in the bars, is the main source of this element, along with the excellent music, mostly in blues and rock tunes, which are the elements that are mostly reminisced of Jarmusch's style.
The first segment is the one where the titillating perversity derives from, with Kaoru Koide embodying the “horny housewife” in the best way, in a part that benefits from both her appearance and her dialogue-less acting. That her friends also end up enjoying the same tentacles is where the main comment of the movie derives, which seems to state that many people live completely unremarkable, mundane lives, and are in desperate need of some sort of (sexual) excitement, even if it comes from a disgusting alien creature.
The element of humor essentially permeates the movie through the general idea, but is also evident on a number of hilarious episodes. The two friends in the bar who insist on how cute the creature is, the scene where it throws up food it does not like and the scene where it smokes, are truly amusing, also highlighting Ugana's imagination and writing skills, with the same applying to the rather smart ending and the funny plot twist that eventually comes to the fore.
“Extraneous Matter” manages to be funny, titillating, audiovisually intriguing and contextually interesting in just 61 minutes that will satisfy fans of both the extreme and the artistic
