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Vengeance is Mine
Why you should never tell a Yankees fan you're a Red Sox fan at a train station.
"Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? Nothing." This is a quote from an episode of Angel that describes this movie and its appeal in more ways than one. It sums up the void that is the morality of Iwao Enokizu, a man who values people as much as he's able to defraud them or that they have in their pockets or secret stashes after he adds them to his victim list. Perhaps more chilling is how this quote describes the number of explanations in the movie as to why Iwao is the way he is. In fact, I can't think of another movie that better exemplifies the argument that art is supposed to ask questions and not give answers. It helps that Ken Ogata is so good at making Iwao one inscrutable, chameleonic and ice-cold guy. His performance is like the dark side of Peter Sellers' in another great movie from the same year, Being There. The brutal double homicide that kicks off the movie notwithstanding, the same descriptors apply to the murder scenes, which have as much feeling as the scenes in which Iwao buys their weapons. Credit also goes to the lead female performers, Mayumi Ogawa and Mitsuko Baisho in particular, whose constant fear and victimhood depict the patriarchy in '60s Japan as one that makes the one in today's U.S. seem like a feminist paradise. Speaking of Being There, the supernatural conclusion in which the heavens refuse to accept Iwao's cursed remains is just as surprising, appropriate and poignant as that movie's ending.
Why do I think Iwao is the way he is? I don't know - if I did, I'd offer my services to the FBI - but the movie's less than flattering portrait of home life in '60s Japan offers one explanation. Whether it's the weakness the young Iwao sees in his father when he surrenders his boats to the government or his family's laughable adherence to Catholicism, he justifiably has little faith in either institution or institutions in general. The horror show behind the facade of the inn where the adult Iwao takes refuge likely dissolved what inkling of faith in them he had left. While countless people besides Iwao have had similar unfortunate experiences and have never committed crimes worse than parking violations, if this much institutional rot existed in Japan in the mid-20th century, it's still surprising more Iwaos didn't come out of its woodwork. I don't love everything about this movie: some may describe its jumps back and forth in time as artistic, but I often found them messy and misleading. Also, I don't think it's puritanical of me to say that too many of the sex scenes have an HBO, "we can whether or not we should" vibe. With that said, if I were ever asked to recommend a movie that provides a memorable and compelling portrait of a serial killer (no pun intended) or a sociopath, this one would come to mind first.
Why you should never tell a Yankees fan you're a Red Sox fan at a train station.
"Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? Nothing." This is a quote from an episode of Angel that describes this movie and its appeal in more ways than one. It sums up the void that is the morality of Iwao Enokizu, a man who values people as much as he's able to defraud them or that they have in their pockets or secret stashes after he adds them to his victim list. Perhaps more chilling is how this quote describes the number of explanations in the movie as to why Iwao is the way he is. In fact, I can't think of another movie that better exemplifies the argument that art is supposed to ask questions and not give answers. It helps that Ken Ogata is so good at making Iwao one inscrutable, chameleonic and ice-cold guy. His performance is like the dark side of Peter Sellers' in another great movie from the same year, Being There. The brutal double homicide that kicks off the movie notwithstanding, the same descriptors apply to the murder scenes, which have as much feeling as the scenes in which Iwao buys their weapons. Credit also goes to the lead female performers, Mayumi Ogawa and Mitsuko Baisho in particular, whose constant fear and victimhood depict the patriarchy in '60s Japan as one that makes the one in today's U.S. seem like a feminist paradise. Speaking of Being There, the supernatural conclusion in which the heavens refuse to accept Iwao's cursed remains is just as surprising, appropriate and poignant as that movie's ending.
Why do I think Iwao is the way he is? I don't know - if I did, I'd offer my services to the FBI - but the movie's less than flattering portrait of home life in '60s Japan offers one explanation. Whether it's the weakness the young Iwao sees in his father when he surrenders his boats to the government or his family's laughable adherence to Catholicism, he justifiably has little faith in either institution or institutions in general. The horror show behind the facade of the inn where the adult Iwao takes refuge likely dissolved what inkling of faith in them he had left. While countless people besides Iwao have had similar unfortunate experiences and have never committed crimes worse than parking violations, if this much institutional rot existed in Japan in the mid-20th century, it's still surprising more Iwaos didn't come out of its woodwork. I don't love everything about this movie: some may describe its jumps back and forth in time as artistic, but I often found them messy and misleading. Also, I don't think it's puritanical of me to say that too many of the sex scenes have an HBO, "we can whether or not we should" vibe. With that said, if I were ever asked to recommend a movie that provides a memorable and compelling portrait of a serial killer (no pun intended) or a sociopath, this one would come to mind first.