Customer Reviews

The Eel ( Unagi ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.4 Import - Australia ]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

This is a film about human sexuality. It is not pleasant. Takuro Yamashita, played very effectively by Koji Yakusho, gets an anonymous letter telling him that his young, pretty wife is entertaining another man while he is out fishing at night, this after she lovingly prepares and packs his supper. He goes fishing but returns home early in time to catch them in medias res. In a cold rage he knifes his wife to death. He bicycles to the police station and turns himself in. Eight years later he gets out of prison. This is where our story begins.

Yamashita, now embittered toward others, and especially women, is on parole. He sets up a barber shop in a small town. He keeps a pet eel because he feels that the eel "listens" to him when he talks. One day he discovers a woman (Keiko Hattari, played by the beautiful Misa Shimizu) in some nearby bushes who has taken an overdose in a suicide attempt. He brings help and she is saved. She then enters his life as his assistant. Her presence challenges the emotional isolation he is seeking and forces him to face not only his future but his past.

The eel itself (a wet "snake") symbolizes sexuality. When this sexuality is confined it is under control. When it is let loose it is dark and deep and mysterious. Director Shohei Imamura's technique is plodding at times, and striking at others. His women are aggressive sexually even though, in the Japanese "princess" style, they may look younger than spring time. His men can be brutal. Their emotions, confined by society as the eel is confined by its tank, sometimes burst out violently.

For many viewers the pace of this film will be too slow, and for others the sexuality depicted will offend. For myself and others who are accustomed to seeing the faces of the players in long close ups on TV and in Western movies, Imamura's medium shots and disinclination to linger on the countenances of his actors will disappoint. Yakusho's face suggests the very depth and mystery that Imamura is aiming at, yet I don't think the camera lingers there enough. Also disappointing is how little we really see of Misa Shimizu's expressions. Chiho Terada, who plays the murdered wife, is also very pretty and completely convincing, but we see little of her. Her expression just before dying, a combination of shamelessness and resignation, funereal acceptance even, was unforgettable.

This is very much worth seeing, but expect to be irritated by the how slowly it unravels and by the central character's stubborn refusal to forgive both himself and his late wife, and his inability to embrace the life that is now his.

According to P. Wu, "The Eel" is a "male-dominant movie" because:

1. The guy gets only 8 years for murdering his wife. (Maybe that's the way it is in Japan. What's unrealistic about that???)

2. He was "mean" because he was "unsociable" and "mean" for rejecting the lunches that a woman made for him.

Then P. Wu says, "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."

What P. Wu FAILS to mention is that the reason the man murdered his wife is because she was cheating on him. Plus, the reason he is "unsociable" and "mean" to the woman who makes lunches for him is because SHE LOOKS LIKE HIS LATE WIFE WHO CHEATED ON HIM.

I'm pretty sure if your spouse was cheating on you, you would behave in a "unsociable" and "mean or unpleasant" way to a woman who looked like your wife. And that goes for if the gender roles were reversed. I'm sure a woman would behave the same way to a nice guy if he looked like her unfaithful husband.

P. Wu, if you're going to write a review--AT LEAST TELL THE WHOLE STORY. Not just what you want to manipulate the readers to think.

Aside from all that, "The Eel" is an excellent movie on betrayal, redemption and forgiveness. In many ways it reminded me of "Crime and Punishment." I highly recommend it. Incidentally, "The Eel" co-won the Best Picture award at the Cannes Film Festival. I'm pretty sure the Grand Jury didn't find "The Eel" to be a sexist film that Pet8 would want you to think.

Though Imamura's engaging psychodrama of regret and sexual repression opens on an overheated and violent act, it soon cools to a slow burn, as the friendship between two troubled people blossoms tenuously before taking an unexpected turn. Yakusho, an expert at playing stone-faced, emotionally distant protagonists, is both sympathetic and impossible to fathom. Poising the action between icy restraint and simmering catharsis, Imamura--who indulges himself in a couple of surreal vignettes--makes his "Eel" a reflecting pool for modern malaise.

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

...The story the Eel resembles most closely is Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, a novel within which the main character is also riddled with guilt after committing a heinous crime, yet also eventually finds a form of redemption.

In the Eel, the main character acts coldly towards the woman, yes, because she resembles his wife, but that is the cosmetic reason. The deeper and ultimate reason for his rebuffing her is that he feels tremendous guilt, feels unworthy of her attention. Not knowing how to communicate that to her, he resorts to the simplest measures: he pretends he's not interested in her. His true feelings are revealed when he lavishes her with care after she incurs a minor injury (ironically, a cut--he stabbed his wife to death). A knee-jerk reading of Crime and Punishment might also lead one to believe that Raskolnikov wasn't worthy of a woman's love. But it's not the point of either of these works to illuminate relationships between the genders; rather, it's to make a case for the right to redemption for all human beings.

...

Robert Stribley

One of my favorite actors is K?ji Yakusho. He has a way of melting into his characters and becoming them in a very basic, natural manner. I hadn't realized he was in Unagi, (or had forgotten), so I was pleasantly surprised to witness another brilliant yet subdued performance on his part. Brilliant in 1997's Cure, acclaimed for his role in 1999's Charisma, 2000's K?rei, his brief appearance in 2001's horror masterpiece Kairo, a Jeremy Irons-like duplicitous role in 2003's Doppelg?nger, his resume is one of the best. This was the first non-horror film I've seen of his. In Unagi, he plays Takuro, a white-collar salaryman who works in the city and resides in a small countryside village with his beautiful wife named Emiko. He has a long commute to and from his job and a seemingly dull or uneventful job (although we only get a minimal glimpse of it at the very beginning of the film). On a regular basis, he joins friends, acquaintances and perhaps colleagues to fish the sea on a pier outside of the close-knit village.

Takuro squeezes onto the same train everyday, probably in the same car... well, you get the idea of a regimented lifestyle, but one Takuro seems to willingly get by with. One particular day on the trip home, he pulls an anonymous note from his pocket and reads that his wife has been having an affair, usually whilst he is fishing. I wondered why the movie didn't set the affair to coincide with him being at work, but it makes more sense when you see it. He makes his walk down the narrow road to his home and greets his smiling wife. He ditches his suit , accepts a prepared, boxed dinner (lovingly wrapped) and leaves per usual for much fishing. It's eery to hear Emiko ask "How long will you be gone?" as a viewer because we obviously know what's happening. Takuro doesn't miss a beat and responds that he'll 'be gone as long as usual'. Takuro spends a shorter time at the pier tan usual and bids the others farewell. On the way, he reminisces about the anonymous note; it also mentions what type and color the man arrived in. When he arrives to his home, he does find a white sedan parked and half-covered with brush next to the house. He sneaks around the house to a window and peeks thru the window. What follows is the reason he's sent to prison, where (at another unknown point) he catches and begins to confide in an eel (he's lost all trust in people) which he keeps in a prison fountain with help from a few guards. The guards allow him to keep the eel when his parole officer assumes custody of Takuro upon his release. Takuro begins to reestablish himself by purchasing a rundown barber shop in a tiny coastal town full of interesting characters and soon a mysterious woman enters the town. She brings a mix of disruption, controversy and maybe hope to the residents of the small coastal town and Takuro himself.

To Unagi's benefit (or not), the story is told with an array of styles. It doesn't stray form it's intention to take Takuros plight seriously, but at times, it seemed to go off on a tangent concerning other characters. I believe this was detrimental to bringing Takuro's redemption to fruition. I'm not saying that developing the other characters is a mistake, I'm just saying that in this case it worked against a complete resolution. Hell, for all I know, that could of been the objective all along; for the ending to remain open-ended and unresolved fully. With characters like Akira Emoto's character Tamotsu (Maborosi, Doppelg?nger) as Takuro's level-headed, wise, father figure-type new friend, could conceivably live on past the ending. The film as a whole has that sort of natural feel to it and an uncanny sense of taking place in two different eras. Add a touch of hilarity now and then to ease the dramatic air and this turns out to be a surprisingly solid movie.

The brutal opening sequence schocks even the most indifferentt of the viewers.
This moral defeat affects him seriously and even he is sent to prison by this double crime, he develops a profound and visible transformation in his affective relations.
He will establish a peculiar relation with this eel that will work out as a cathartic device, till the love comes for him to rescue.
Mature and very original film that meant another triumph in Cannes for this wunderkid and loved film maker, who shares with Angelopoulus a very special affection in Europe.
It's time for you to get close to the world of this giant japanese director who has proved his enormous talent with The Ballad of Narayama, Black Rain, Eijanaika and this one.
A favorite and personal Japanese films of that decade.

I agree that this movie is primarily about the right of all human beings to redemption. Whether or not you believe that everyone deserves a second chance, this movie will certainly make you think about that question more deeply.

The main character is NOT haunted by his wife's betrayal-- he is haunted by the fact that he KILLED her!!! It is very disturbing to me that anyone would think of his killing her (and later being unsociable towards another woman who reminded him of her) as being even somewhat justified by the fact that she had been unfaithful to him. That is a misogynistic mindset if ever there was one, and it misses the whole point of the movie.

I do agree that this movie is somewhat sexist.. as in countless other movies, it does not provide any particular reason for the woman being attracted to the man (the man doesn't have to be particularly nice, interesting, attractive, or anything else). I'm a woman and that has often bothered me in other movies also. However, that's a minor complaint in this case, and this movie is absolutely worth seeing!! It is visually beautiful, poetic, extremely intelligent and thought-provoking, and totally deserving of the award it won at the Cannes Film Festival.

When this foreign film came out in 1999, it got 4 stars from The San Francisco Chronicle. As a result, there were long lines at the UC Theater in Berkeley, which is where I saw this terrific movie! I don't know where to begin. The beginning of the film caught my eye and I knew that this was going to be great. All I remember is that the director shot a red street light from an interesting angle--very Bergmanesque. Everyone has already talked about what this film is about so I'm not going to repeat them. I will say this though--the characters were great: funny and perceptively drawn. After the main character is released from prison, he has no desire to go back to the City and instead chooses to live in a small village as a barber. All he wants is his own little space in the world. Is that asking for too much? Apparently it was because a woman throws a monkey wrench into his plans. This part of the film reminded me of the Ben Kingsley character in Turtle Diary (another excellent film!). I don't want to spoil the ending but there is a terrific scene in the barber shop that is totally hilarious. This part of the film reminded me of Tampopo and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I can't wait for it to come out in DVD.