Rampo Noir is a collection of 4 short films based on stories by Edogawa Rampo, the so-called "Japanese Edgar Allen Poe". Rampo Noir is widely uneven, painfully pretentious and at least half an hour too long. Despite these shortcomings, the film does offer its fair share of pleasures - stunning visuals, black comedy . Rampo Noir is not a great film but it is an interesting addition to the very small genre of "arthouse horror".
These shorts are sick. The writer behind the original stories may have a disturbed and twisted mind for inspiring these disgusting tales of torture and obsession, and love (love which is so alien it doesn't really fit the word).Of course many stories by Edogawa Rampo have been banned already in Japan for that very same reason.However, these shorts were great examples of how dark cinema can get. These push right to the boundaries, where sense, reason, and any sort of real point is left behind in its own madness. And it does try to make points. They draw parallels between conscious and subconscious, reality and delusion. The surreal images and narratives destroy the boundaries between the two and the flow freely into each other. The film challenges what art really is. Whether it's a beautiful reflection, a horrific image, or something that is both beautiful on the outside but dead and corroded inside. Here we see that mirrors have the potential to be god, trapping us in its frame. Love is horrific. Horrific. These shorts have the potential to repel you in disgust, or to draw you in and lose yourself in its insanity, and for that reason alone it is a powerful work of art.You leave the film feeling as if the makers had thrown a lot of violence and sex at you stylishly but with no real substance. The shorts are too surreal and disjointed to follow through with any of the points they try to make. The are no answers to be found in these shorts, and nothing profound to learn or re-learn. However, these shorts were never made with such intentions. They were made to show the madness of Edogawa Rampo. They were made to disgust you, and to provoke you. And they mastered that exceptionally.
Whether you like it or not, you won't forget this one. This movie is not for the taste of everyone but yet it is unique in it's genre . I personally like the last two stories more .
IMDB Info :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423034/
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