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Pretty Good

An Exercise In Nonsense

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I might have given it a higher rating had the film admitted its own hollowness. When this film tried to dress itself as something deep things start to get worse. All the life philosophies preached by it via 'the reel' is nothing more than mere commonsense, and far-stretching to the theme story, to say the least.During the viewing I wished that the director had bothered to show us what exactly the main character spoke to his eel when they two communicate, because the eel seems the only connect he had and mean a lot to him. Then we might be able to understand the main character a bit better, and understand the tie between him and his eel better. However, the one and only time we see this is: the main character crouched by the side of the glass tank and asked the eel with a tender voice, with his face full of concern and with the presence of a neighbour, "Do you like it here?" The whole scene is so absurd and out of place that it hurts.What bothered me most is the attitude of the main character towards his crime. It is so important that it forms the foundation of the entire film. Therefore a weak and blurred conception will undermine everything. But again the director hauled us a muddled mess.Now it is left to ourselves, we seemingly have two options to work with. First, he repented his murder. Then what we see basically from the film is how a man's murdering of a woman is redeemed by accidentally saving another woman's life. Due to the fact that everything about the saved woman happened totally independent of the main character (Not much happened in the film actually, mind you), and no sacrifice or endeavour of any form is required from him, the redemption seems cheap and convenient to the viewer.Then if we come to the second conclusion that he never repented, we are then facing a more intimidating mentality. Why does the main character deserve the 'happiness' by the end of the film? Had the main character really killed his wife out of hallucination? Is the director hinting on the impending of another tragedy? The undertone of the film will then be entirely altered. But the ending of the film, where the saved woman watches smilingly and peacefully the car driving away in the warm dusk after handing over the lunch bag, is blatant enough to overthrow this consumption. On the other hand, if it is the conviction of the director that the merciless crime committed by the main character is forgivable after only 8 years prison, he does not give enough clue to justify it. We never get a chance to hear the murdered wife's self-dependence in front of the appending kitchen knife. From the very little information we get about the murdered wife, she seems, if not faithful (that is, if the adultery DID happen), at least a caring and competent housewife and there hasn't been any serious confliction between her and the main character.If the stoic personality of the main character, though forgettable and one dimensional, can manage to make sense, all other characters in the film verge from bizarreness to insanity. Many, especially the mad mother, should be left out for good. No one can simply stands for logic. For example, the saved woman. What caused the transformation from her being desperate and suicidal before to suddenly optimistic and strong in action after? How come she, as a daughter of a rich family, has experience of working in a barbershop? And most importantly, what aroused her affection towards the main character, besides the fact that he spotted her body and called the police, therefore indirectly saved her life? If the binding up of the cut finger can be looked upon as a sort of set up for this plot development, then it comes as abrupt and trite as all other plot developments in this film. The concern from the distant main character over that cut finger feels sudden and out of nowhere. Did the director forget that his character is determined to shut himself in and keep distance from everyone else, especially woman?All puzzles, no satisfactory answers given...... Maybe the biggest puzzle is how on earth did this garbage win in Cannes that year? This is not a satisfactory film. This film failed in almost every aspect, like most of other contemporary Japanese films.

This was a very engaging film about a guy who murders his cheating wife and then is released from prison 8 years later. You really find yourself rooting for him--especially when he meets and saves the life of a lady. You really want them to get together,...the problem is, he is SO afraid to open up to people that he distances himself from her and chooses to confide more in his pet eel. It seems that if he does connect to someone on a deeper level, he's afraid he might kill again--though he is clearly a decent person who snapped one time in his life and only after being pushed. It's a great character study and the acting and direction are marvelous--with a few lapses here and there. What didn't I like? Well, it isn't so much the acting that's the problem, but the script. Repeatedly, flashbacks and psychotic-like hallucinations occur. They tend to muddle the basic message and confuse the plot. Without these and without the LARGE amounts of blood in the murder scene, this would have gotten a rating of 9 or even 10.

Takura Yamashita (Koji Yakusho) has served eight years in prison for murdering his wife and her lover in a jealous rage and attempts to rehabilitate himself by opening a barbershop in an isolated corner of Japan. His past, however, catches up with him in Shohei Imamura's The Eel, co-winner of the 1997 Cannes Palme D'or with Kiarostami's A Taste of Cherry. Based on the Akira Yoshimura's novel Sparkles in the Darkness, The Eel is either an absurdist comedy, a drama about redemption, a surreal poem about states of consciousness, a thriller about jealousy and revenge, or all of the above. As the film opens, Yamashita, a worker at a large flour company, is startled to read an anonymous letter on the train coming home from work informing him that his wife cheats on him when he goes away on overnight fishing trips. Cutting one of his trips short, he returns home in the middle of the night to find his wife Emiko (Chiho Terada) in bed with a lover. Grabbing a butcher knife, he brutally stabs both of them to death then calmly rides his bicycle to the local police station and turns himself in. After eight years in prison, he is released and paroled to an elderly Buddhist priest. Alienated and afraid, Yamashita's only companion is a pet eel whom he confides in ("he listens to what I say"). He opens a barbershop in a rural part of Japan but his life becomes complicated after he saves a young woman, Keiko (Misa Shimizu), from suicide and gives her a job at his shop. Reminded of his former wife, Yamashita avoids intimacy but she is drawn to him nonetheless and offers him box lunches when he goes fishing.In spite of trying to keep his distance, Yamashita attracts some local characters that move the plot in a different direction. These include a young man who borrows his barber pole to attract UFOs, a fishing buddy who designs a device to catch eels without harming them, and his former prison mate, Tamotsu Takasaki (Akira Emoto), a foul-mouthed drunk who recites Buddhist Sutras and reminds him of his previous acts. The story, which until now has had a rich dramatic arc, soon descends into forced comedy when Keiko's mentally-challenged mother shows up doing flamenco dances and Keiko's former boyfriend returns demanding her mother's money. The townspeople and semi-gangster associates of the boyfriend join in a final free-for-all at the barbershop that might have been lifted from the Three Stooges.The Eel is at times a brilliant and involving character study about a man seeking to turn his life around. At other times, however, it is a discordant conglomeration of plots and subplots, one-dimensional characters, and heavy symbolism relieved only by wooden farce. The UFO sequence is very lame and the comic behavior of a man just out of prison seems inappropriate as he marches like a soldier then runs after a jogging team that is passing by. Imamura has said, "If my films are messy, this is probably due to the fact that I don't like too perfect a cinema." I know that things are not always neat and our lives are often a blend of drama and farce, but The Eel's odd mixture of quirky characters and widely disparate elements keeps it from coming together as a satisfying whole.

Some parts are terrible and stupid, but many are fascinating. I hated and liked it from time to time, and wanted to fast-forward, but I couldn't. You have to endure it to see what I mean. A few parts are unforgettable, and more than a few are quite forgettable.