A Snake of June – Review

A Snake of June is a film I had always wanted to watch but the characterization for it always seemed rather unclear; I once found it in the Horror section, which is something I now deem improper and quite frankly impolite. Then I had the wonderful pleasure of watching it during a lecture and found it so enthralling that I decided to make it the subject of an essay, a condensed, frank version of which I now give as a gift to you (with all the boring stuff obliterated, obviously.) Basically, A Snake of June is a film about sex. I can pretty much end the review here knowing that you will now all be running to your local DVD store, but then it wouldn’t be a review and what else would I do? So let’s continue with some storyline.

Rinko is a young counsellor with the wonderful job of working at a suicide prevention hotline. Her husband Shigehiko, who could easily be mistaken for her father (in fact I thought it was her father at first) is a slightly over-weight, a lot bald, cleanliness-obsessed salary man who would rather scrub the kitchen sink than touch his wife. Thus she touches herself, something she hides from her husband and is deeply ashamed of, but hey, if nobody else is gonna do it…One day however, she receives a package from a former helpline caller whose life she saved. The package contains some very compromising photographs of her, wearing extremely suggestive clothing and acting out some surprising fantasies that she thought were private. And so naturally, the blackmail begins. The caller threatens that he will show these pictures to her husband unless she acts out her sexual fantasies in public, for him and his camera; something he claims is for her own good. Yeah, sure. The more humiliation Rinko suffers, the more she seems to become comfortable with herself, but at the risk of her husband discovering exactly what she’s been up to.

The film deals with the slightly awkward subject of sexual transgression, pushing social boundaries away from the norm and more towards pleasuring yourself in an alleyway with phallic looking vegetables. Then it goes a bit further still when giant black tentacle penises start choking people. Yes, that’s right, giant genitalia, but it’s not as if this is the first Japanese movie to feature metal penises so we can all just calm down and grow up. It is undoubtedly inspired by the Pink Film to some degree, and since the whole movie is covered in a blue tint, it is somewhat literally a Blue Movie too, but it never seems to wander off toward titilation. There is also an erotic ‘wetness’ to the film, June is of course the wet month in Japan and so Rinko is constantly soaked from the rain or dripping with sweat from her ‘activities’. Then there are the random shots of drains, naked skin and close ups of snails, a little bit ‘Eraserhead,’ but not as weird.

If all of this makes you feel uncomfortable and freaks you out a little too much, then this is definitely the film for you! After all, A Snake of June argues for the loss of sexual identity and the empowerment of anybody who enjoys feeling awesome but is just too scared. It tells us to stop being such a prude, be liberal, get up and ask for what we want. It asks if you are fulfilling your urges to your full potential and then gives you a slap in the face if the answer is ‘no’. I recommend this film to anybody who is open and comfortable with their sexuality, but even moreso to those who aren’t.