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The Eel

1997, Movie, NR, 117 mins

The Eel: Review

EEL, THE | UNAGI
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This masterful film from veteran Japanese director Shohei Imamura shared the top prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, and it's easy to see why: Imamura's artistry and the fine cast make for the kind of film international festival jurors love. The casual moviegoer, however, may find Imamura's symbolic subtleties a little obscure. It's summer 1988: Takuro Yamashita (Koji Yakusho), a mild-mannered salaryman, returns home early from a fishing trip to find his wife in bed with her lover. Enraged, he slaughters her with a butcher's knife, then calmly turns himself in to the police. Eight years later, Yamashita is released on parole with a stern warning to steer clear of the messy affairs of other people. It's a warning he has little trouble heeding: Betrayal, murder and a prison term have left him asocial, unforgiving and unrepentant -- the only living creature he is capable of communicating with is a pet eel. Yamashita relocates to a small coastal village, where he sets himself up as a barber. One afternoon, while collecting eel food, Yamashita comes across the dying body of Keiko (Misa Shimizu), a troubled young woman who has swallowed a handful of pills. Despite his resolve, Yamashita rescues her, and Keiko -- who bears a striking resemblance to his late wife -- gradually becomes part of Yamashita's life, until menacing figures from the past threaten Yamashita's reconnection with the world around him. Imamura's film is meditative but lively, sometimes playful, and often sweet, though its optimism is continually challenged by echoes of brutality and death. Imamura opens his film with a shocking scene of violence worthy of any HALLOWEEN sequel, and while the movie never returns to that level of intensity, Imamura maintains an edgy balance between elegant restraint and impending chaos. Its what makes this film about what lies beneath the surface work as well as it does -- that and Yakusho's remarkable, often chilling performance as an emotionally remote man who's capable of quite a bit of chaos of his own. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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