If you thought Tom Six's film The Human Centipede (First Sequence) was sick and twisted, you ain't seen nothing yet. Six is back with a sequel The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) which push the boundaries of taste and violence to the next level.
This time the story take a post-modern twist by having the main character Martin be obsessed by the actual film The Human Centipede, watching it obsessively again and again during his long, lonely shifts as a public car park attendant. Unlike the first film which sets up an air of mystery before revealing it's twisted agenda, the violence kicks in almost immediately laying it's cards squarely on the table. Martin is clearly not a stable man.
There's lots of things which, when combined, make this an even more uncomfortable watch than it's predecessor. Most obviously the film is shot on a grainy black and white film stock which immediately makes the movie feel grimy and grubby. The monochrome visual look is fortunate when it comes to the constant and uninhibited bloodletting that occurs, as it blunts the impact of the goriness for the audience.
In addition to the surface level murder, assaults, maiming, surgery and general physical and verbal violence that occurs there's also a provocative subtext of how child abuse warps an adults morality later in life, that sexual arousal can be gained from watching and participating in violent acts in an unbalanced mind, and of course that 'art' can influence a mentally sick person negatively. The violence occurs in the movie on a pretty regular basis. Since the events depicted are of a copy cat nature (performed by an ill equipped, lacking-in-knowledge amateur) of the events in the first film the audience no longer has the 'luxury' of witnessing a clinical, sterile procedure...this is crude, messy and nasty. And finally, there's the final act, with events becoming more and more extreme, excessive and outrageous.
The director has a knack for casting and in Lawrence R Harvey he finds a magnificent leading man, just as he did with the creepy Dieter Laser in the first film. Harvey looks physically repulsive to begin with (sorry mate) and the fact that his unnerving performance is almost entirely mute (which carries every scene of the film)makes him all the more weird and unsettling.
Undoubtedly the film is an uncomfortable viewing experience. However it reopens a debate about whether art can simultaneously be a critique of something as well as being the thing it seeks to criticise. Starship Troopers is a good example. It both shows characters clearly supporting a Nazi-like totalitarian society whilst cleverly taking the piss out of it. Lucky McKee's The Woman shows men clearly enjoying, and benefiting from, the subjugation of women (something the film has been attacked for)...and yet it also explores the negative consequences of this. The Human Centipede 2 shows a man who is inspired to do evil things by a film and is seen to revel in it. As the concerned British censers have already noted, real life nutters could be inspired by the sequel to perform vile acts themselves. But in dramatise a subject, in order to discuss a subject, you sometimes have to show the subject blatantly on screen. Is it possible a nutter may get inspired by Human Centipede 2. Yes. All people are influenced by all types of sensory input, including all forms of art (films, book, photos, music, blogs, sculptures etc) whether they embrace it, dismiss it or ignore it. Is it right to be disgusted by Human Centipede 2. Oh yes, it pretty damned grim. But it's not right to just dismiss the film as purely provocative exploitation. It is that...but it's also a study of that...and that gives the film artistic worth.
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