‘The Midnight Parasites’: Yōji Kuri’s demented nightmare
The Japanese animation industry has been recognised as a pioneering force since the last century, especially due to the efforts of figures such as Hayao Miyazaki and Hideaki Anno, who have successfully tapped into the global consciousness. While most fans of animation are familiar with the big names in anime, the lineage of Japanese artists working in the domain extends further back than our modern understanding of the industry. One such artist is Yōji Kuri.
A leading figure within the landscape of independent animation in Japan, Kuri’s work played an important role in shaping the unique sensibilities of Japanese animation in the 1960s. Often recognised as the leader of the highly influential artist collective called the ‘Animation Association of Three’, Kuri’s approach to animation conducted a radical examination of the artistic frameworks through which contemporary animators were viewing the world around them.
During his tenure as a filmmaker, Kuri made around 40 short films, but one of the most interesting examples of his contributions to the cinematic medium is a 1972 gem called The Midnight Parasites. Set in a relentlessly unforgiving world, The Midnight Parasites pushes the logic of modern capitalism to its logical conclusion. Kuri’s world is populated by entities who are stuck in an endless cycle of consumption and defecation, eventually blurring the lines between food and faeces.
The Midnight Parasites acts as a fascinating precursor to René Laloux’s incredible 1973 masterpiece – Fantastic Planet. If you thought that Laloux’s allegorical exploration of the Anthropocene and colonisation was unsettling, The Midnight Parasites is going to make your skin crawl. Featuring similar blue humanoids who are constantly preyed upon by predators, Kuri’s film is a scathing critique of the sociopolitical and economic structures that imprison us.
The influences of a wide range of artists can be found in The Midnight Parasites, especially that of the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch. Kuri’s vision of the world is undeniably reminiscent of Bosch’s macabre depictions of hellscapes. The way in which the form of the human body is translated to the animated medium is strange, almost as if the bodies themselves are sacs that are only designed to burst open and propagate the cycle of decay.
From popular culture hits such as The Human Centipede to more obscure examples of surreal and erotic animation styles in Japan, the artistic legacy of Kuri is immeasurable. His obsession with anality and excretion plays an important psychosexual role within the nightmarish world of The Midnight Parasites, predicting the nauseating effects of 21st-century consumerism. If Samuel Beckett was an animator in an alternative universe, this is exactly the kind of stuff he would come up with.
Watch the film below.
