[Film Review] Philosophy of a Knife (2008)

Trigger warning: Mention of torture and real historical atrocities

Historical atrocities are something that cannot be shied away from, and filmmakers have time and time again reverted to fictional depictions of true stories to enlighten audiences of the historical horrors that have happened. Cultural extremism, a term coined by Kelly Gredner, is a way to classify films that focus on themes or reenactments of societal and political events within a country. These are horror films that cross the boundary lines of fiction and blend together real information with faux extreme violence and depravity as a way to show the horrors the country has witnessed. Films like Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film or Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo look to educate the viewer with history whilst shocking them with barbarity. 

Andrey Iskanov’s 2008 extreme film, Philosophy of a Knife, is no different as it looks to explore and dissect the war crimes that were committed during WWII by a Japanese experimental testing facility known as Unit 731. If you’re an extreme horror fan, you’ll be more than aware of T.F. Mou’s 1988 film Men Behind the Sun, which also depicts the wickedness of Unit 731 and abhorrent human experiments that were conducted at the facility. And for those of you who perhaps haven’t heard of it, it’s one of the most harrowing, nihilistic and difficult to sit through pieces of cinema to exist. So why 20 years later was there a need to create yet another depiction of such torment?

Iskanov’s film looks to take the sheer shocking scenes of the 1988 film but amplify them to new extremities. Philosophy of a Knife is presented as a documentary showing supposedly real footage from the experiments, exploring the reasons behind them and why they conducted such awful experiments on innocent people. The film blends together archival footage with interviews and reenactments of the human body being desecrated, with a devastating and painful viewing experience for the audience. There are no boundaries when it comes to showing how the human body can be pushed to its absolute limit, explaining that the Unit were looking to comprehend just how much pain the human body can withstand before it simply ceases to function. If you thought torture porn was a demonstration of how to force the viewer to watch images that will rot within their brain forever, then you haven’t sat through over 2 hours of seeing some of the most horrific acts ever committed. 

In one scene we watch as a woman is put through the most depraved torture, with her teeth being pulled one by one, screams of suffering until her meager form can no longer take the pain that it is being put through. In another scene we are witness to a man being gassed, with commentary describing how death by a gas chamber would be one of the most slow and painful deaths imaginable. Although a large majority of the film just focuses on interviews segmented with historical footage, the scenes of violence against different subjects feels like you are being put through your paces in terms of how much pain you can watch another human being put through. 

Philosophy of a Knife isn’t a film that should be taken lightly, and it’s hard to recommend to anyone who doesn’t have any real interest in extreme films that push boundaries to limits that shouldn’t be crossed. If you have seen Men Behind the Sun and other films of this nature, then you might find this a torturous watch as it’s often tedious in places, however, it does effectively inflict emotions of horror and distress whilst watching. If you’re not a fan of the extreme and are wondering if this is a film you should use to test your boundaries, then it would be advised not to do so because frankly it’s going to cause you some serious emotional damage. This depraved piece of cinema is designed for those who are on a path of traumatic devastation, looking for a film to make you question whether or not you should ever need to watch such inhumane scenes play out of screen. Approach with caution and know exactly what you’re about to watch if you’re settling down for a view of Philosophy of a Knife.

Grab your copy of Philosophy of a Knife from TetroVideo now!

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