The Eel
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Akira Emoto, Fujio Tsuneta, Kôji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen Running Time: 117 minutes DVD Release Date: 2001-08-28 Audience Rating: Unrated Studio: New Yorker Video |
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Movie Reviews of The Eel
Movie Review: 2nd REVISED REVIEW: Guilt and Redemption
Summary: 4 Stars
Guilt and Redemption are the pervasive themes of this quirky, disturbing, very fine film from Shohei Imamura. The consequences of the instantaneous loss of control molds this story in the way such life happenstances unfold - slowly - and Imamura knows how to take us with him in this strange tale, pausing here and there for the surreal, dreamlike sequences that can and do alter our perceptions of reality.
Takuro Yamashita (Kôji Yakusho) is a quietly married blue-collar worker who spends some evenings fishing for sport and food, his passive wife Emiko (Chiho Terada) sending him off with boxed lunches. Takuro receives an anonymous letter that states his wife is having an affair while he slips away to fish. Incredulous, Takuro returns early from his nocturnal fishing to find his wife engaged in flagrante and Takuro stabs her to death, then bicycles to the police station and turns himself in for the murder of Emiko. He is imprisoned for eight years and conforms to the rigid life of the incarcerated, his only companion is a pet eel with whom he feels he can communicate.
Here the film's story begins. Upon release from prison, Takuro is placed under the supervision of a kindly priest who helps him start a barbershop, living a quiet secluded life, his only friends being his pet eel and a strange character who has set up a field station to attract friendly aliens from outer space! All is calm until he encounters the disturbed Keiko (Misa Shimizu) who closely resembles his murdered wife. Takuro saves Keiko from a suicide attempt and the priest encourages him to take on Keiko as an assistant.
Takuro is emotionally dead over his guilt for the murder of his wife and refuses to entertain the idea of opening himself to Keiko's affectionate advances. There are too many similarities between the dead Emiko and the frightened Keiko. Yet when all of the forces collide in the climax of the film, Takuro realizes how much of his past is mixed with fantasy/nightmare and, equally, how much his present is dependent on his interaction with Keiko, the priest, his sci-fi friend and the forces who would destroy Keiko and his quiet existence. Though the ending is somewhat marred by an unfortunately Keystone Kops type silly sequence, it suggests that the cracks in Takuro's mental armor may be healed as the possibility for redemption unfolds in a tender way.
There are many levels of interpretation to this fable and to explore each of them would rob the first-time viewer of this little film of the pleasure of the chess game Imamura sets for us. The acting is solid, the night scenes are lovely, and the day scenes are as visually chaotic as the real world in which we live. There could be improvements in the editing, definitely in the musical score and in the camera work. But those are minor blemishes in this film that engages the mind in the challenge of entering a new mode of thought. A strange little film, this, and not for everyone. Grady Harp, May 05