The Gut

Abstract

A tall, slim man in a white doctor’s coat and knee-high leather boots is striding around a leaf-strewn lawn as mist rolls across the grass and around his legs.¹ The wide-angle medium-long shot transforms the space into a stage, placing the camera and spectator in the distanced position of an audience in the theatre that belies the forceful visceral response this particular scene invokes (see Figure 5.1). Central to this stage is a 12-limbed beast made of three people who are attached to each other by their mouths and anuses. Just prior to this moment, the front segment, Katsuro, had begun, much to his despair, to defecate. Veins bulge in Katsuro’s face and neck, as medium close-ups show his strained resistance against the inevitable. The camera moves down his back to bring into frame Lindsay, the middle segment, who, with moist bloodshot eyes widened in terror, pushes her hand against Katsuro’s bandaged backside in a vain attempt to avoid the human waste that is slowly making its way towards, and into, her mouth and gullet. The towering man continues to pace around the sorry creature, gleefully ordering in a deep and authoritative voice for the front section to ‘feed her’, and for the middle segment to ‘swallow it’. Wet, tactile sound effects provide a soundtrack for the bowels over medium close-ups of Lindsay’s throat convulsing, her body helplessly defying her will as she ingests what would ordinarily be expelled.