Issei Sagawa is a cannibal from Japan who, while studying abroad in France, murdered and ate a Dutch university student in 1981. Leaving evidence everywhere, he was soon arrested but was mentally unfit to stand trial. After some time in a French mental institution, his rich father had him extradited to a Japanese psychiatric hospital where he stayed for 15 months, and after that he was released. He then became a huge celebrity in Japan and started doing interviews, apparead on different kind of tv-shows and also became a writer and has then published a bunch of books. Excuse Me for Living is the documentary that tells the story of a small Japanese man that had more than just a thing for tall western women.
For those of us who are not from Japan, Japanese culture can sometimes seem a bit strange, like the weird types of sexual preferences, rape-pornos, the whole schoolgirl thing, extremely weird tv-shows, getting off on torture, eating sushi from naked girls bodies, just to mention a few things. With this, I don't mean it's all negative though, and to many non-Japanese persons it's actually quite the opposite. Different cultures are something that is truly great, and we're all from different parts of the world with different backgrounds, history etc, but Japanese culture often stands out, and maybe that's why we enjoy a lot of things from Japan like films, videogames, anime, crazy porn...you name it. Personally, I'm a big Toyota fan.
Now, making a cannibal a national treasure is something that can be considered to be a truly crazy thing. This can also be applied on all American serial-killers who were raised to the sky for their actions, worshipped by loads of people and getting their stories on film etc. I don't wanna get to personal on the subject and I know that while a lot of people are into this sort of thing, there are of course more people who just find it all to be quite repulsive. Before getting into the story of Issei Sagawa, I just want to make it clear that I don't think any of this is 'cool' nor do I find what the man did to be the least bit impressive. I can't really relate to any of this whatsoever and I feel sorry for the Dutch girl and especially for her parents. I mean, someone murdered and ate their little girl and then became a celebrity for what he did, think about that for a minute or two. On the other hand, this documentary was infact a really interesting piece of film, and even though watching this doesn't make you feel better for what happened, it still sheds some light on things and you get a much better picture of what Issei Sagawa is all about.
Most people who commit horrible acts of crime often comes from a broken home, and that a really bad childhood can lead to insane actions later on is not something that might be true, it's a fact that has been proven a countless number of times. Strange thing though is that Sagawa did not come from a broken home at all, he had a loving family and seemed to have a good childhood. Things started when he first began school where he noticed that he was much smaller than the rest of the kids. He had a dream of him and his brother being boiled in a pot, to become someone's dinner, and since then, cannibalism was always on his mind. He grew an obsession for tall white women, and as time went by, the obsession grew stronger and stronger. Just kissing, touching or making love to a white woman wouldn't be enough; he knew what he had to do, it just took some time before it actually happened.
In some cultures they believe that eating someone is as close as you can get to a person, to capture the very essence of that person, to actually become part of that person or rather that the person actually becomes a part of the eater. To dumb things down a bit, think of the movie Highlander, you chop someone's head off and you gain that persons knowledge, strength etc. Sagawa was a great student who studied English literature at Wako University in Tokyo and later went abroad to Sorbonne, France to continue his studies. A fellow student of Sagawa, a Dutch beauty named Renee Hartevelt were to be killed and eaten by the man. They spent a lot of time together, but while Hartevelt just wanted to be friends, Sagawa wanted more. One night Sagawa invited Hartevelt up to his apartment to read some German poetry and then and there realized that he desired to eat her. The next evening Hartevelt returned to Sagawa's apartment to continue reading poetry, and while she was reading, Sagawa took out a rifle and shot her in the back of the neck. He then began to cut off portions of Hartvelt's body and continued to eat them and he even baked one of her breasts in the oven.
Later on he put various bodyparts in two suitcases and tried to get rid of them, dumping the bags in a park in Paris but was seen by witnesses which later led to his arrest. When the French police later searched Sagawa's apartment they found pieces of the young lady in his fridge. Unfit to stand trial, he was placed under psychiatric care in a French psych-ward where he was examined by psychiatrists saying that he could not be cured. Years later he was transferred to the Matsuzawa hospital in Tokyo where he after some time was declared to be sane and not guilty, (something that the French didn't agree with). The authorities did not seek further prosecution against Sagawa and so he was a free man, and is still alive today.
This documentary, Issei Sagawa: Excuse Me for Living, has a ton of interesting things to offer for those interested in Sagawa and his case. There are interviews with Sagawa and with him reading from his books about his crime, his childhood and his obsession with white females. When just hearing about the man, it all sounds extremely brutal, but watching this documentary actually made me see things a bit different. Sagawa has just done the crime once and since then he hasn't done anything criminal, and even if it's a truly horrible crime (that he doesn't seem to regret at all), watching this and hearing it from his point of view actually made a lot of difference. Not saying that he should be forgiven for his crime or anything like that, but at least the documentary explains a lot about Sagawa, his obsession and everything with him being small, not attractive, walking like with a limp and all of his shortcomings. There's no gore or disturbing imagery in the documentary, it just tells the story about Sagawa where we get to hear him and other people speak about the whole thing. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not at all into this type of thing but I have to admit that watching Issei Sagawa: Excuse Me for Living was very interesting.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 1990
DIRECTOR: n/a
WRITING CREDITS: n/a
GENRE: Documentary
CAST: n/a
COUNTRY: Japan, UK
RUNTIME: 50 min
RATING: 7/10
Issei Sagawa: Excuse Me for Living Website/IMDB Click here
Issei Sagawa: Excuse Me for Living Trailer Click here
DVD supplied by TrueGore
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