Filmmaker Yoji Kuri made some experimental animated works in the 1960s. His features are short and mostly focused on sparse and bleak visuals, centering on a subject and usually perverting it into a bizarre and darkly comic reflection.
HUMAN ZOO is Kuri's most misogynistic work, sadly. In the context of the 1960s, a radical feminist movement was emerging in Japan around the time this work was made; it looks like he couldn't resist parodying women's lib. The short is basically a rhythmic montage of men and women in cages, with the women constantly beating the men. Technically everything is exemplary, as befits a Kuri piece: it's all edited together to provide a musical rhythm and flow.
It's great for a dark parody of its time. But as anything else it comes off as offensive and silly.
HUMAN ZOO is Kuri's most misogynistic work, sadly. In the context of the 1960s, a radical feminist movement was emerging in Japan around the time this work was made; it looks like he couldn't resist parodying women's lib. The short is basically a rhythmic montage of men and women in cages, with the women constantly beating the men. Technically everything is exemplary, as befits a Kuri piece: it's all edited together to provide a musical rhythm and flow.
It's great for a dark parody of its time. But as anything else it comes off as offensive and silly.
