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#530 - Cure
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997
A detective investigates a series of ritualistic murders that are being committed by random people under the influence of hypnotic suggestion.
Another film where I've gone in knowing next to nothing about it other than it is considerably acclaimed and something of a cult film, it's very easy to apply one's own frames of reference to Cure in order to make sufficient sense of it. The plot involves a detective (Koji Yakusho) investigating a bizarre type of serial killing - namely, that random and seemingly unconnected individuals are committing vicious murders that are distinguished by carving an X into the victims' necks post-mortem. These murderers and victims are being discovered around the same time that an amnesiac wanderer (Masato Hagiwara) is creating new ones out of various people he runs across as he stumbles from place to place. The inherent weirdness of the case leads to Yakusho having his own gradual breakdown, which is only exacerbated when his wife's own mental problems escalate in severity and cause the stress of both his work life and home life to collide in all sorts of unexpected manners.
I can pick apart what types of psychological crime thrillers seem to have had an influence on Cure, especially those types that go beyond their simple cat-and-mouse narratives to ask deeper questions about why the "cat" chases the "mouse" (or whether or not the "mouse" is ever so easily caught). Fortunately, Cure has a sufficiently interesting concept that makes its seemingly derivative nature come across as less of a copycat and more of a film whose own inventiveness inspires comparisons to similarly creative takes on the thriller. The hypnosis angle is revealed at a relatively early juncture in the narrative and information is parceled out slowly as Hagiwara convinces multiple sane individuals to commit gruesome acts of murder against the unlikeliest of targets. Plenty of tension is wrought out of that side of the narrative as one watches Hagiwara go through his routine. He establishes an effective psychological tactic constant asking of questions and apparent inability to retain any answers he might receive, which leads to him asking the same questions over and over again (much to the frustration of his "victims" and, to a lesser extent, the audience). The careful exposition as to how he gained this mysterious power is also developed slowly yet effectively as Yakusho and his co-workers conduct their investigation, but this is not a film that is all that concerned with solving the mystery so much as the effect it will have on those that solve it.
Cure is intermittently graphic without coming across as gratuitous, while the interplay between protagonist and antagonist does end up becoming a solid backbone for the film as a whole (which is only improved by certain scenes, such as one where a confrontation between the two leads takes place over the course of one especially lengthy take). While the film is pretty unremarkable when it comes to visual style (save for the occasional instance of deliberately and effectively disorienting editing), the sound design stands out in a way that can probably best be described as Lynchian due to its emphasis on discomforting drones sounding as the narrative demands. Though it does drag in places and could have used just a little tightening, for the most part it's an effectively enigmatic thriller and remains so up to and even past its final scenes. The way in which the film ends manages the impressive feat of making me question why Cure has not been given a Western remake while also understanding perfectly why that should be the case. As a sufficiently strange and unpredictable little psychological thriller, it definitely deserves more recognition.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997
A detective investigates a series of ritualistic murders that are being committed by random people under the influence of hypnotic suggestion.
Another film where I've gone in knowing next to nothing about it other than it is considerably acclaimed and something of a cult film, it's very easy to apply one's own frames of reference to Cure in order to make sufficient sense of it. The plot involves a detective (Koji Yakusho) investigating a bizarre type of serial killing - namely, that random and seemingly unconnected individuals are committing vicious murders that are distinguished by carving an X into the victims' necks post-mortem. These murderers and victims are being discovered around the same time that an amnesiac wanderer (Masato Hagiwara) is creating new ones out of various people he runs across as he stumbles from place to place. The inherent weirdness of the case leads to Yakusho having his own gradual breakdown, which is only exacerbated when his wife's own mental problems escalate in severity and cause the stress of both his work life and home life to collide in all sorts of unexpected manners.
I can pick apart what types of psychological crime thrillers seem to have had an influence on Cure, especially those types that go beyond their simple cat-and-mouse narratives to ask deeper questions about why the "cat" chases the "mouse" (or whether or not the "mouse" is ever so easily caught). Fortunately, Cure has a sufficiently interesting concept that makes its seemingly derivative nature come across as less of a copycat and more of a film whose own inventiveness inspires comparisons to similarly creative takes on the thriller. The hypnosis angle is revealed at a relatively early juncture in the narrative and information is parceled out slowly as Hagiwara convinces multiple sane individuals to commit gruesome acts of murder against the unlikeliest of targets. Plenty of tension is wrought out of that side of the narrative as one watches Hagiwara go through his routine. He establishes an effective psychological tactic constant asking of questions and apparent inability to retain any answers he might receive, which leads to him asking the same questions over and over again (much to the frustration of his "victims" and, to a lesser extent, the audience). The careful exposition as to how he gained this mysterious power is also developed slowly yet effectively as Yakusho and his co-workers conduct their investigation, but this is not a film that is all that concerned with solving the mystery so much as the effect it will have on those that solve it.
Cure is intermittently graphic without coming across as gratuitous, while the interplay between protagonist and antagonist does end up becoming a solid backbone for the film as a whole (which is only improved by certain scenes, such as one where a confrontation between the two leads takes place over the course of one especially lengthy take). While the film is pretty unremarkable when it comes to visual style (save for the occasional instance of deliberately and effectively disorienting editing), the sound design stands out in a way that can probably best be described as Lynchian due to its emphasis on discomforting drones sounding as the narrative demands. Though it does drag in places and could have used just a little tightening, for the most part it's an effectively enigmatic thriller and remains so up to and even past its final scenes. The way in which the film ends manages the impressive feat of making me question why Cure has not been given a Western remake while also understanding perfectly why that should be the case. As a sufficiently strange and unpredictable little psychological thriller, it definitely deserves more recognition.