Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

zetes A film that reminds me very much of David Lynch, particularly Mulholland Dr., the way it establishes a reality and then, in the middle of the picture, makes us question that reality. A young girl is forced to watch as her parents make love from inside a cello case. Later on, her father brings her into the bed, too, which drives her mother (Masumi Miyazaki) into a rage. Major spoilers follow: after nearly half the movie, it's revealed that this disturbing scenario is really the plot of a new novel by a woman named Taeko (also played by Miyazaki). So it's a fiction, right? Well, Taeko's not quite sure. She's a bit nutty. Perhaps the scenario is an invention of her sick mind. Perhaps she was the girl in the story, Mitsuko. And perhaps her new editor (Issei Ishida) knows more than she does about the whole situation. End of spoilers. The film is highly flawed. In particular, when the truth is finally revealed, it explains everything a tad too much. It also rips off a particularly effective final twist from Miike's Audition near the end (and it's not as effective here). Still, a very interesting film from one of the most interesting filmmakers working today.

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.

polysicsarebest For the first 30 minutes or so of Strange Circus, you might be fooled into thinking you're going to be watching a linear story of child abuse, weird sex, cello cases, and circuses. Then, throughout the next 30 minutes, you wait and wait, hoping that the story of an insane, schizophrenic, handicapped woman who is writing a novel might lead to some compelling connection with the first part of the film. Finally, at the last 30 minutes, you grow frustrated that nothing adds up, nothing makes any sense, and you've just wasted 90 minutes of your life on what feels like a director making up a plot as he goes along.I'm no stranger to this kind of cinema, and I am also familiar with this director's other works, so I kind of knew what to expect going into this. However, as the plot teeters from needlessly complex to just needless, I couldn't help but feel that the director himself didn't know what was happening in this film, throwing in twist after twist near the end for no good reason than to make the film more, um, "strange".This film is loaded with some great imagery such as class rooms filled with bloody walls and a coffin filled with flowers that is set on fire. There are even some disturbing, thought-provoking sequences peppered throughout, and I'm not usually disturbed in the slightest by anything in films. The acting and music are fine all around. The pacing of film can be a bit disorienting, though the hyperkinetic editing won't be shocking to anyone familiar with these types of movies. Basically, without spoiling the plot, I'll say that the film is told in a completely nonlinear fashion, jumping from past to present to future without any regard to the viewer, and it is a deeply convoluted plot involving a) a principal having sex with his daughter and b) the loss of identity.It's definitely worth a watch, though don't expect to walk out of this one understanding anything. I typically hate the term "Lynch-like", but a lot of the film will seem familiar to Lynch fans, as it explores many themes Lynch has been trying to cram down our throats for the past decade. Though whereas Lynch makes nonsense compelling and somehow holds his films together by a thread, the nonsense here is simply that -- nonsensical.Not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination and actually quite compelling for most of the running length. A shame about the final half hour or so, though. I often see this film recommended to fans of challenging cinema -- I dunno, this film didn't really challenge me, it just frustrated me. Worth a look.

kosmasp ... if you like this movie. Neither is the director ... at least I don't think he is. If you watch this movie you might ask yourself these questions, because this is not your usual fair, it is extreme and out there.I don't even know what to make of it. But I do know, that even though I was disgusted at times, I also was amazed by this movie. Which says much about the craft of the director on work here, who will take you on an emotional journey.This journey will not be an easy one and you probably won't enjoy it (in fact, you are supposed not to enjoy it). And although you know you watch bad things (even with children involved in them, but never explicitly shown), you get the feeling that this movie is great. Not for the faint of heart then, but definitely for people who are open to challenges!