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The Eel
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Art House
The Eel
Unrated
1997, New Yorker
Cinephiles have admired Japanese filmmaker Shohei Imamura since his 1958 debut. Films like The Insect Woman (1963), A Man Vanishes (1967) and Black Rain (1989) are considered classics of postwar Japanese cinema. The long-standing question is why Imamura has never been able to become more than a cult figure in the United States. The DVD release of his 1997 drama, The Eel, should finally introduce Imamura to a wider audience. A subdued story about a Japanese businessman's struggle to regain his humanity, The Eel is the most accessible of Imamura's dramas. It's a worthy starting point for film buffs discovering Imamura for the first time.
The everyday banality of Takuro Yamashita's (Koji Yakusho) corporate life vanishes after he acts on a tip about his wife's infidelity. In The Eel's bloody prologue, Imamura wipes away what he refers to as Japan's "veneer of business suits and high technology" to reveal the feelings of betrayal, revenge and violence in Yamashita's heart.
This early sequence of violence in The Eel displays Imamura's meticulous technique. An outside light turns crimson red the moment Yamashita returns home to his cheating wife. Blood splatters across Yamashita's yellow raincoat and white ball cap during his murderous act of revenge. Blood also splatters across the screen. It's as if Imamura splashed streaks of red paint across the camera lens.
The Eel takes a humanistic turn after Yamashita turns himself in at the neighborhood police station. The story quickly jumps ahead eight years to his release from prison. He relocates to a rural village to restart his life as the owner of a barber shop. His only companion is an eel he raised as a pet in the prison pond. It's a relationship that puzzles Yamashita's parole officer.
"Why an eel?" he asks Yamashita.
The reply is soft-spoken and matter-of-fact. "He listens to what I say."
"He listens?" the parole officer asks further.
Yamashita slowly nods his head in response.
"He doesn't say what I don't want to hear."
An act of kindness changes Yamashita's life when he discovers the body of Keiko (Misa Shimizu), a young woman who has tried to kill herself. It's hard for Yamashita to be friends with the grateful woman. It's hard for him to be friends with anybody. The turning point occurs when Yamashita discovers that Keiko also has a similarly dark past.
Imamura won the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival for The Eel, one of only three directors in history to win the award twice (He also won the Palme d'Or in 1983 for The Ballad of Narayama).
The widescreen photography is beautiful in The Eel. Its storytelling is precise and compelling. Under Imamura's delicate touch, the dark shadows in the film's violent prologue dramatically shift to the brighter colors that surround Yanashita's redemption in his new country home. Less frantic than his earlier films about prostitutes, pimps and pornographers, The Eel emphasizes the veteran filmmaker's craftsmanship through its quiet dialogue and subtle performances. The Eel is as energetic as any of Imamura's earlier films. But by telling a humanistic drama about one man's acceptance of tragedy and death, Imamura unleashes the energy in a quieter, internal manner. (Grade: A)
And the rest:
Pretty women Amanda Peet and Cara Buono do their best to bring a much-needed jolt to the forgettable romantic-comedy Two Ninas (Avalanche). Writer/director Neil Turitz unloads a dull farce about the perils of big-city dating. The film's crippling blow is Bray Poor's lulling performance as the object of Buono and Peet's affections.
