Agents Provocateur: Shocktober @ GFT

“Kiri, kiri, kiri kiri kiri....” The reaction these words cause in me is Pavlovian, but contrary to salivation they offer only dread. These are an arachnid beauty’s silken tones as she hovers above her paralysed prey in Takashi Miike’s Audition (31 Oct).  It is one of cinema’s most uncompromising images. With the inhumanity of an insect queen she commits acts which would distress even the nadir of CIA interrogators. This is the glorious full stop to Glasgow Film Theatre’s Shocktober film season, a selection of cinema which delivers both shock and awe, quite a feat.

Modern provocateurs seem quite satisfied to show us only a putrid collage of images devoid of depth; they bait their hook too heavily. Uninterested in this pornography of sadism, GFT’s curation is considered and impeccable. So, like Asami, Audition's sadistic femme fatale, we travel deeper, deeper, deeper into the annals of cult cinema, a journey which begins with Chopper (4 Oct).

Before Eric Bana slipped into a sickly stream of rom-com syrup he was Mark Brandon Read, aka Chopper, Australia’s A-list criminal of choice. Wearing a thick, melted pub ashtray of a prosthetic neck, scarred stubs of ears and a truly terrifying handlebar moustache, Bana burned up the screen. Every anaemic performance since has seemed a vain attempt to neutralise this explosive debut.

Chopper (Andrew Dominik, 2000)

The next stop is Seul Contre Tous (11 Oct). Gaspar Noe rivals Von Trier for the crown of provocateur du jour. This is the man who served up vengeance at the beginning of the twisted chronology of Irreversible, cruelly denying us the expected final catharsis of violence and thus forcing us to investigate our own need for revenge. Noe bombards us with highly disturbing imagery but what we are forced to question is our own response to it – the ball is put firmly in the audience’s court. In Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone) we are served a smorgasbord of violence, humiliation and rage; Noe pushes to consider just what we want, and even need, to see on screen.

Rounding out the five-film programme are Todd Solondz’s pitch black comedy Happiness (18 Oct) and French shock cineaste Catherine Breillat’s À Ma Sœur! (Fat Girl) (25 Oct). The term ‘porno auteuriste’ has stuck to Breillat and here she squares up to the censors again with a tale of sibling sexual rivalry with a sting in its tail. Happiness is another that implicates us as viewers. Our role as voyeur is an uncomfortable one as we look in on the inhabitants of an American suburban underbelly which views like a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.

What this quintet of films have in common is that they all stimulate thought. They don’t infect our minds with new demons, rather they force us to confront those already in there. They prove that cinema can provide so much more than just pure entertainment. Attend any of these screenings at Glasgow Film Theatre and you will walk away affected. GFT quite rightly mention that in addition to engaging the critics these films have outraged the moralists, never a bad thing in my book.

Seul contre tous (Gaspar Noé, 1998)