The young woman appears far too vulnerable and fragile. She is too thin, she looks exhausted and her eyes are filled with naked panic. Perhaps she is simply overwhelmed by motherhood, or perhaps there is no baby at all - just an anxiety disorder. Or a severe personality disorder. A lunatic. Shinya Tsukamoto's Kotoko does not tell us what terrible things may have happened to her in the past that made her so (auto-)aggressive. Rather, the film leads us deeper and deeper and more and more hopelessly into the violently agitated, heavily paranoid, noisy interior of its title heroine, which is filled with terror fantasies, horror visions and hand-held shaky-cam. She is played by Cocco, a Japanese singer and songwriter who also created the story from which Tsukamoto wrote the screenplay.
Born in Tokyo in 1960, the director of the legendary Tetsuo films, protagonist of the Japanese cyberpunk sub-genre, master of body horror, takes on the role of the unfortunate writer Tanaka, who tries to tame the unruly girl. We briefly hope for a good outcome with him and for him, Kotoko briefly comes to rest and Cocco sings a moving song. But then it starts to swirl again, the maelstrom grinds, drags everything down with it - and leaves a bleeding heart behind.
