short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Charisma (1999, Japanese)

In their third project together, director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and actor Koji Yakusho venture once more into bizzaro world, with a dark story about a mysterious tree. Yakusho plays Yabuike, a disgraced police officer who, upon his dismissal from the force, ventures into the woods outside the city. He begins to live an almost feral and rather inexplicable existence there, and it seems without question that he has gone completely insane. Not long after his arrival in the woods, he encounters several groups of people – an oddly dedicated crew of foresters, a pair of diametrically opposed sisters, and a young ex-mental patient – all of whom are somehow tied to the titular tree. Yabuike is also drawn to this spindly-looking sapling, and begins to help tend it, despite being deeply unsure of whether it is a force for good or evil. (Is it protecting the surrounding woods, or destroying them? What will happen if the tree dies? Why does everyone care so damn much?) As in Kurosawa’s other films, details about background and plot are only implied, and the viewer is left to determine his or her own opinion about exactly what the hell is going on. Multiple theories seem possible, but will likely make even less sense than the film itself does.

Like Kurosawa/Yakusho's Doppelganger, Charisma is spotted with odd humor – so odd that some scenes seem almost unintentionally funny – and the entire movie seems at time a precursor for Doppelganger’s bizarre and hilarious chase sequence (which is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a film since the “Mountain Song” in The Taste of Tea). But in the end, Charisma is more akin to the team's previous effort, Cure, than to the later film, and the end result of all this dark humor is more disturbing than hopeful.

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