The Eel
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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
Movie Review: A film with a rare kind of integrity.
Summary: 4 Stars
Shohei Imamura returns in fine form with "Unagi" (Japanese word for 'eel'). There are certainly noir-ish themes explored in this film. There's a protagonist in a lonely, secluded state of existence who must face life with staunch stoicism, there are shots where exaggerated emphasis on color depicts the emotional content of the scene/character, dream/surreal sequences, a crime from which everything unfurls, etc... However, to view the film only as an homage to certain noir films is a grave disservice to Imamura's originality and craftsmanship. The characters and storyline are rendered without a trace of sentimentality, which is a feat given that the familiar story matter invites kitsch: a man catches and kills his adulterous wife, receives parole and begins a new life. It just makes me shudder to think what kind of cornball Hollywood would have come up with, given the same subject matter. Koji Yakusho gives another fine performance as a confounded man who does not know the true nature of his crime, who nonetheless craves a new beginning, no matter how uncomfortable he is with all the things in the world. The male and female protagonists are fantastically flawed people, and that's the way most people (us) are, aren't we? There should be more films like this: portraying the worst and redeeming qualities of people with unflinching honesty. Imamura's honesty pays off handsomely when there seems to be a hint of redemption for these fallen people. It is genuinely moving, and the redemption is a believable one, the kind that all of us wish for ourselves when we are down on our knees. All the emotions - sexuality, voyeuristic tendencies, inferiority complex, fear, etc- are so accurately conveyed and palpably summoned up that you begin to muse about the shadows that lurk within yourself.Movie Review: Decent Film version of a chilling book
Summary: 4 Stars
It's probably germane to note that "The Eel" is a film adaptation of a novel called On Parole, written by Akira Yoshimura. It's a pretty free adaptation; for instance, there's no eel in the book. The film loses some of the richness of the book, and it develops very slowly, and its central metaphors are tentative and underdone, but it's still a very interesting movie with some comic moments and some very touching scenes as well. I thought the cinematography was spectacular, really capturing the sadness and heat of semi-rural Japan.Movie Review: Morality slippery as an eel
Summary: 3 Stars
Esteemed Japanese actor Kôji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?") stars in "The Eel." Yakusho is a happily married business who suddenly begins receiving letters indicating that his wife is having an affair while he is away on fishing trips. So Yakusho returns home early from one of these fishing trips, catches his wife in the act, and brutally stabs her to death. After serving 8 years in prison, Yakusho attempts to rebuild his life as a barber in a small town with only his pet eel that he acquired in prison as a companion. He explains that he trusts the eel, as it cannot betray him. When he stumbles across a woman trying to kill herself, his suspiciousness gets the better of him; however, he eventually helps her and, in the process, changes his life.
I had heard great things about "The Eel" and knew that it had received the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I was expecting a film reflective perhaps even existential in tone befitting its allegorical approach. "The Eel," though, is much lighter, verging on romantic comedy at times; some scenes toward the end even border on slapstick. I found the tone confusing and somewhat inappropriate for the subject matter. To its credit, "The Eel" attempts to address some big issues - betrayal, redemption, guilt - and it does so in an ambiguous way that could have really illustrated the slippery nature of morality. Unfortunately, the script came across as pretty shallow and unreflective to me, which prevented it from saying anything new.
In the end, I'm not sure whether the main character has earned redemption. Perhaps that was the filmmaker's intention, and not all protagonists have to earn redemption to make a movie worthwhile, but I found it unsatisfying. Finally, the music score was one of the most intrusive I've encountered in recent years and undercut the movie's themes. I was hoping for a movie that shed some new light on guilt and redemption, but I was pretty disappointed.
Movie Review: A men's fantasy
Summary: 3 Stars
If you don't mind a male-dominant movie, then this is a good movie.The guy gets only 8 years for murdering his wife. Then, during his parole, he was mean (by rejecting the lunchbox she made for me twice) and unsocialable but the girl still threw herself at him. All he had to do was dish out some kindness once in a while, and the girl was hooked. Men's fantansy if you ask me, but perhaps it reflects the Japanese way.
If the roles of male and female were reversed, would the movie still work? I think not.
Based on the VHS version.
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