I felt a little uneasy here and there watching this flick, mostly due to the fact that I was watching it in a sort of 'viewing room' on a campus, where a bunch of TV's are set-up and people can watch whatever they want with headphones for the volume. Luckily, no one else entered the room- if so, I would probably have been reported for watching pornography, or snuff-film work, or both. I'm almost surprised this even came in the mail via netflix (though not that it didn't, apparently, get theatrical distribution here in the states). Of the only handful of Takashi Miike films I've seen, this does definitely take the cake. If it's maybe not his absolute best maybe it's part of the appeal; Miike is experimenting with the viewer's expectations, even his f****d up Japanese fan-type ones. It takes the idea of doing a tragic-comedy on a dysfunctional family and turns it on its head, and puts it across the line of what should usually be acceptable with absurdism, and either have the viewer be pleased (in a manner of speaking) or utterly disgusted, or both, that they went over the line.<br /><br />And what a family indeed. It starts off as being something, in its own way, almost quirky in the view of a family on the brink. There's infidelity at first- the father (Kenichi Endo), unintentionally video-tapes himself having sex with a certain girl. This is quite the graphic, uncomfortable sex scene, albeit with the most 'sensitive' parts being blurred, and this cuts right away to something completely different (if the Monty Python sound rings from reading that, it's not without some coincidence throughout the picture), as the father gets hit on the head by some guy with a rock. This guy, knick-named Q (Kazuchi Watanabe), comes to stay at the family's house, where the mother (Shungiki Uchida) gets whipped with a cane by her son, who on his way to and from school always without fail gets beaten and robbed by bullies. She's also into heroin, but then later when something happens particular-like with Q, another unnerving revelation is revealed, one without really any explanation for being there.<br /><br />But I realized after a while Miike set it up from the beginning with Q suddenly entering into this world, and somehow for no actual reason being accepted. In fact, if you're looking for reason, you might want to look elsewhere, seriously. It's a look at the disintegration of a family using a medium within its video-work (I was reminded of Godard's equally un-settling work of original sexually depraved and uncouth family in Numeroux Deux), and if taken really as being a serious work you might have to turn it off after a while. This is not something that I could easily do, however, as I had to watch what would happen much like in something in a Lynch or Bunuel film. It's actually not without some merit to compare him with those other filmmakers, as his work pushes the absurdism/surrealism to the brink, where there's no choice left but to laugh at what's going on. Take when the father decides to suddenly jump into his 'reality-TV' time by taping when the bullies shoot fireworks at their house. Or when things start getting particularly disturbing (necrophilia, yeah) and the juxtaposition of father to mother in these scenes is extraordinary in deranged comic timing.<br /><br />After it ended, with the final shot leaving a look on my face like a dog in front of a different piece of food in the bowl, I knew that Visitor Q is a work that goes beyond taking an ultra-serious look at the world of these psychotic criminals- or at the least social introverts and with sexual intentions that go over the edge- it worked a lot better than it might have at doing just a straightforward mockumentary of reality-TV. I'm not sure what the situation of the degrading medium is like in Japan, but by sticking to mocking this family and they're near-silent 'visitor', and putting it all through a blender of crimes and misdemeanors that would make some faint on the spot, Miike achieves his goals more or less, whatever they might be. It's got some scenes that don't work early on, or maybe its just so strange to really get into the mood of it at first. Once hooked in, I had as much fun, in the most perverse voyeuristic way, as I did with Ichi the Killer. It confronts the viewer, and should be deliciously shocking and unrepentantly hilarious for years to come. That it's not for everyone will be known right from the first scene.