User Reviews

I thought would be how it was and still went forward to watch it, and it wasn't my wisest move. This movie is so destabilizing that I ended up not knowing if it was really finished, started or was still playing.

It contains so many references toward Id that it is hard for me to say what went wrong. I'll attempt to summarize that I found was wrong in a few lines.

First thing, "Id" is a mental structure of a person, often said to be relied to that person's unconventional action such as killing. But here there were way too many characters to even follow who was afflicted. If they were all afflicted at least it would just have made this movie simply bad. They did try to insert character development that made it harder to follow. I am pretty sure that any psychologist would herself/himself be confused.

Second thing, where are we? There are very little tangible elements to aid us in knowing where we were half of the time. One half of that time we were set near a pig slaughter house.

This is my final point. A movie however how experimental, by the book, etc., should at least lend us a hand at understanding the story, if there is one. I'm sure there were tons of potential to the story but I couldn't make tails from heads out of it. Sure they conveniently marked the sections with chapters, if so there was not that much I could understand out of them.

In the end, make sure you're mentally prepared to be scarred by this movie, because it's at least good for that part.

This is an odd tale I had difficulty comprehending. It appears to be a critique of the teachings of Amida Buddha who claim man is higher than animals. The film presents men as no better than animals and appears to mock the theology/philosophy of the teachings by utilizing a pig farm/slaughter house. Humans are reduced to primitive roles involving rape, killing, incest, and voyeurism. Unfortunately it was done in such a haphazard matter there was no real plot to follow.

For a special viewer, which didn't include me.

English subtitles.

Parental Guide: No F-bombs. Sex and nudity and not that pretty.

Id is a film that seems very simple on the outset but the deeper it goes in, the more you start to realize that something is very amiss. The widely-circulated plot summary of this film about a killer roaming around a village doesn't really explain at all what this film is about. And having only watched this film twice, I don't know if I can really think of a better summary anyway. To put it simply, this is film that is not for everyone and you will not walk away from this understanding every little thing that happened. Of course, that's probably the point, and there's a lot to appreciate it here besides all the headscratching moments.

This film seems to be dealing with a lot of religious symbolism that I couldn't hope to comprehend, but it also hits on some interesting themes and ideas. From what I can tell, the story is about a village of people who eat pigs, and the movie seems to hit us over the head with the fact that we are not much different than pigs -- they are of an equal species. And there are many scenes in this film of people eating pig meat. Apparently, if you eat the flesh of your own species, you will go insane. So, I think "symbolically", everyone in this film is insane because they're all pigs themselves, eating pigs. Which isn't really even that deep of a point to make, but it perhaps explains why every single character in this film is nuts.

Anyway, this film is divided into six similar chapters that is in a book called "Id". Three people read the book which has no text in it. The film slowly goes from hilariously bizarre to bizarrely hilarious to disturbing over the course of the six chapters. Lots of scenes of people screaming, being beaten over the head, eating pig meat, bleeding from their heads, looking through holes, and interacting with pigs. Near the end of the film, the gore goes through the roof. And nothing is really explained, again, there's just vague allusions to religion and child abuse and... pigs.

So, why would I bother giving this film such a high score? I won't claim to understand every element, but I think the film was put together well enough that it doesn't just scream "nonsense" at me. I drew my own conclusions and have my own interpretation for what all this means -- I mean, this IS an art film. If you don't like David Lynch, Alexandro Jodorowsky, or others you probably won't appreciate this. There is just some absolutely amazing, beautiful, artful shots here (like a scene where someone gets hit in the head with a baseball bat and the entire screen turns to blood puddles; many scenes where the characters are isolated in rooms that are filled with nothing but blackness; a scene of a woman with hands coming out of her stomach; and an amazing scene where a yard is completely filled with blood puddles and rain before the earth splits apart). The characters are all extremely unlikeable but are hilarious. The film is loaded with gore. I mean, it's always interesting, there's always something cool to look at, and a lot of the film DOES make sense -- just, as a whole, it comes across as a bit of a mess.

The film is kind of slow, and it seems the director knew that because she purposely sped up certain scenes for unintended (? Probably very much intentional actually) humor. And you'll probably walk away from the film somewhat unsatisfied, as a lot of things don't add up. But I for one think this is some kind of masterpiece -- it could've used some tighter editing perhaps, but having watched this a second time just now, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what COULD be cut out. This is a film that I have some mixed feelings about, but I can safely say that the "artful" portions of it make it more than watchable. As a film, it barely scrapes by, but as an art piece, it's absolutely inspiring.

Watch at your own risk.