by Andrea Grunert

Shinji Araki, whom I interviewed in 2024 (1), has kindly given me access to his new work, the short film The Temptation I Had (Sono yuwaku). His first long feature, The Town of Headcounts (Ninzū no machi, 2020), is set in the future while keeping elements of the contemporary world, and Penalty Loop (Peneruti rupu, 2024 [2]) is a mixture of a variety of genres in which fantasy elements intrude into everyday life situations. As well as being highly gripping, both films offer deep reflections on individual responsibility and humanity.
The 30-minutes-long The Temptation I Had also blends present-day reality and fantasy. Most of the action takes place in the apartment in which Kaori (Risa Asanuma) and Takao (Tomomitsu Adachi) live and is anything but futuristic. The outside takes are of ordinary settings: a road intersection filmed from a bird’s eye view, a modern apartment building, an empty plot of land … At first glance, all seems absolutely trivial. However, there is a lingering uneasiness that is created by the voice-over. While the camera captures moments in the couple’s daily life in their private space, Kaori’s voice reveals her concerns about changes in her husband’s behaviour. His habits are not the same as they used to be. The Italian-style noodles he normally prepares so well are suddenly tasteless, whereas the Japanese dishes – usually not his forte – are excellent. The way he uses the vacuum cleaner to clean the floor is also different. And even his physical shape seems to have undergone some strange transformation.
The voice-over reveals the young woman’s inner feelings. She also shares her thoughts with a female friend – Rika (Rio Kanno) – with whom she exchanges text messages. The voice-over and the messages, which are superimposed on images of Kaori, express her misgivings, which are at the core of the narration. Both the voice-over and the text messages add meaning to the images.
The questions Kaori asks herself imbue the film with latent tension, creating moments of suspense. The separation of image and sound together with the text messages, which appear as on the screen of a smartphone, heighten the film’s appeal and create emotional distance. They also contribute to the feeling of mystery that permeates The Temptation I Had. As in Penalty Loop, in which the uncanny pervades the protagonist’s daily life, no special effects are needed to create the realm of fantasy. In Penalty Loop, the futuristic-looking hydroponic plant factory creates an eerie feeling of unfamiliarity. In The Temptation I Had, the bare concrete walls of the apartment or even the bird’s eye’s view of the intersection or the fact that the streets are devoid of cars and pedestrians contribute to the suspense.
Although Rika finds rational answers to her friend’s concerns, the story evolves towards the fantastic. It is in the last part of the film that the uncanny is fully revealed. A dialogue sequence allows the viewers to conclude that despite the overall visual design, which is clearly realistic, they are watching a mystery film.
I will try to avoid spoilers by not providing further clues, but one other key motif, namely desire, can be mentioned without revealing the explanations for Kaori’s worries. In the disguise of the fantastic, Araki deals with questions of sexuality and gender, homosexual desire and sexual identity, and in fact, hidden desires are at the core of his short film. In Penalty Loop, the time-loop narrative is the frame for reflections on guilt and revenge, murder and grief. In The Temptation I Had, the clash between everyday life and fantasy is linked to an unexpected story about desire and hidden feelings.
As in Penalty Loop, there are frequent shots of a tree, its leaves whipped by the wind. Nature is shown as a realm beyond the private space of the apartment in which most of the action takes place. It also alludes to spirituality and inner life and to the magic of nature, so different from the concrete buildings and the tarmac dominating the urban environment. And, as often in Japanese, films, these isolated shots may well not be in any way related to the narration but function instead as a break in the story. Some of the images are beautifully arranged, such as the symmetrical shot of a concrete wall in front of which is a table with a flower in a vase and a glass of wine, evoking a still life. This shot is a clear indication of Araki’s undeniable interest in painting. There is not much music on the sound track except for a few sequences, in particular the one of Kaori and Takao’s passionate lovemaking (3). In general, silence prevails and thereby heightens the feeling of mystery. The slow pace of the narration also invites reflection and at the same time intensifies the latent tension. The atmospheric density that Araki succeeds in creating makes The Temptation I Had a film that is both stimulating and entertaining.

(1)  Interview with Filmmaker Shinji Araki

(2) Penalty Loop

(3) The music was written by Ayane Kondō.

 

 

by Andrea Grunert

A murder is commissioned: that is the starting point of Takashi Miike’s Shield of Straw (Wara no tate, Japan, 2013). The billionaire Ninagawa (Tsutomo Yamazaki), whose 7-year-old granddaughter has been raped and murdered, offers a reward of one billion yen to anyone who kills the suspected murderer Kunihide Kiyomaru (Tatsuya Fujiwara). When Kiyomaru, on the run, narrowly escapes an attempt on his life, he turns himself in to the police. Inspector Kazuki Mekari (Takao Ōsawa) of the Security Police and his subordinate Atsuko Shiraiwa (Nanako Matsushima) are assigned the task of escorting him from Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu to Tokyo. They are joined by two colleagues from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and a police officer from Fukuoka Prefecture. The journey of 1,200 kilometres becomes a life-threatening undertaking that not all the members of this team will survive. With the whole of Japan eager to get their hands on the bounty, the police officers themselves are in the role of the hunted.
Shield of Straw is the adaptation of the mangaka Kazuhiro Kiuchi’s eponymous first novel, published in 2004 (1). Takashi Miike, one of the most prolific Japanese filmmakers of the last thirty years, has made use of a great variety of topics and genres including jidai geki (13 Assassins/Jūsannin no shikaku, 2010 and Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai/Ichimei, 2011), fantasy films rooted in Japanese mythology (The Great Yokai War/Yōkai Daisensō, 2005) as well as directing the Western-inspired Sukiyaki Western Django (Sukiyaki Uesutan Jango, 2007), and Ichi, the Killer (Koroshiya Ichi, 2001), a mixture of crime film and comedy. Many of these works include graphic violence and feature a flamboyant style. At first glance, Shield of Straw might appear to be a straightforward thriller, but, both entertaining and thought-provoking, it is an original work on the rule of law and revenge, duty and trauma that also offers reflections on human nature. As in 13 Assassins and Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai, Miike approaches moral questions that arise in an extreme situation.

The law called into question
Shield of Straw contains numerous action sequences – wild shootings and spectacular mass scenes – and is full of unexpected turns and moments of great suspense. A huge contingent of police escort Kiyomaru and his five guards. However, the first incidents occur on the motorway in the metropolitan area of Fukuoka, where an intimidating battalion of several hundred policemen are massed to manage the transfer and line the route (2).
The five police officers whose task is to conduct Kiyomaru safely to Tokyo all have different views on their mission. Kamihashi (Kento Nagayama), the youngest of them, expresses most openly his hatred of the murderer. Shiraiwa says, jokingly, that the team is the closest to the one billion yen. However, she threatens Kiyomaru twice with her pistol and seems eager to kill him. Okumura (Gorō Nagayama) says that he would not mind if someone killed Kiyomaru. Sekiya (Masatō Ibu), the police officer from Fukuoka, is a reserved man and shows less contempt. However, he makes no secret of the fact that he understands Ninagawa’s hatred of Kiyomaru and his desire for revenge. It is Mekari, the main protagonist, who is the one almost obsessively single-minded in his determination to protect Kiyomaru at all costs. His sense of duty sometimes collides with that of the three other men, who are not security officers. Each of the five officers having their own idea of the law and justice, the delicate balance between good and evil is continually threatened (3). Repeatedly challenged by people who want to get their hands on the bounty – fellow policemen, yakuza and civilians – the suspicion that one of the five could be a traitor complicates their mission.
The five police officers are required to risk their lives for a murderer – a situation at the core of the moral dilemma addressed in Shield of Straw. There is no doubt about Kiyomaru’s guilt. Portrayed as a completely detestable little man who revels in violence as long as he is not the target himself, he commits another hideous crime in the course of the action, killing Shiraiwa. He is clearly a psychopath who even enjoys the journey, observing his guards closely and provoking them incessantly. Before the murder of Ninagawa’s granddaughter, Kiyomaru had already been sentenced for the rape and murder of a child, and the film emphasizes his pathological interest in young girls when at one point he escapes from his guards. Trying to hide in a small village, his attention is caught by a little girl sleeping on a veranda and it is only the sudden appearance of Mekari that stops him sexually abusing her. Tatsuya Fujiwara’s performance – his malicious grin and obvious enjoyment when witnessing a man being shot – contribute to the portrayal of a criminal who arouses only revulsion.
That Kiyomaru is guilty of murder and highly dangerous are undisputed facts. However, the legal situation is complicated by Ninagawa’s appeal for his murder. By intriguing against Kiyomaru, he reveals his mistrust of the police and the legal system in general. The novel makes it clear that, according to Japanese law, Kiyomaru will not face the death penalty (4), but in Miike’s film, one of the characters states that the murderer will definitely be sentenced to death. However, Ninagawa has taken the law into his own hands, demanding reciprocal justice. His action is not simply a matter of revenge – if someone kills Kiyomaru, that person will face trial for this offence.
Kamihashi’s feeling of disgust for the murderer leads him to threaten Kiyomaru. The father of Kiyomaru’s first victim tries to kill him, but while he acts out of hatred and desperation, greed seems to be the strongest motive for most of those who seek to take Kiyomaru’s life. The hundreds of police officers securing the route for Kiyomaru in Fukuoka and the police units dispatched to the train stations where the train with Kiyomaru and his five guards stops are particularly well-equipped with firearms. They pose a bigger threat than civilians, and high-ranking police officers in Tokyo are even involved in a plan to sabotage the transfer.
In his novel, Kiuchi includes lengthy descriptions of the Japanese security police force to which Mekari and Shiraiwa belong, emphasizing that even if it was established following the American model, it adheres to a policy of non-aggression (5) and it is Ninagawa’s revenge plot that makes it necessary to equip with firearms the five officers travelling with Kiyomaru and also the other police mobilized for the transfer. Miike does not pursue this aspect, leaving it to the viewer to understand the difference between the situation described in the film and the usual practice of the Japanese police. Whereas in the novel Shiraiwa is male, Mekari’s junior and a rather carefree and slightly naïve character, in the film Shiraiwa is not only a woman but also a single mother. Criticism of the difficult role of women in the Japanese police force is hinted at when it emerges that Shiraiwa as a single mother has no prospect of promotion despite her experience and expertise.

Loyalty and obsession
The question why one should protect a villain and risk one’s life for him is frequently posed, and it is Mekari who tirelessly insists on the security officers’ duty to escort Kiyomaru safely to his destination. Giri, which can be translated as loyalty, duty or obedience, was a cardinal value of the samurai-ruled Tokugawa period (1603-1868). In the era of the Tokugawa shogun, collective honour and the protection of both the lord’s and the clan’s honour became more important than seeking personal reward (6). The culture of the warrior class, based on honour, still lingers in Japan’s postwar entrepreneurial culture as well as in institutions such as the police force. His immediate superior says to Mekari that his first and foremost duty is to safeguard the honour of the police, and Japan’s strongly hierarchical system is reflected in the scene in which Mekari, Shiraiwa and the two police officers from Tokyo have to bow to their superiors. Just how much Mekari has internalized the ideal of honour is revealed in the sequence in which Shiraiwa threatens Kiyomaru with her pistol, prepared to kill him. Mekari prevents her from pulling the trigger, appealing to her sense of honour.
Even if questions of loyalty and duty are deeply embedded in Japanese culture, the principled Mekari is also described as a true professional who recalls American counterparts, familiar from cop films. Mekari is an extremely competent security officer, is intelligent, an excellent shot, an attentive observer and a good strategist. He values professional honour and duty and therefore does everything in his power to ensure that the child murderer has a safe journey to Tokyo. Although showing the least revulsion of the perpetrator and his crime, he too is torn between duty and feelings of revenge. However, unlike Ninagawa, who just wants revenge, Mekari consistently defends the rule of law, expressing his disgust at Ninagawa’s interference, which causes chaos and claims lives. Despite sharing with the elderly billionaire a similar experience of loss, Mekari enjoins him to withdraw the bounty offer and face legal consequences.
Contradictions between the law and the notion of justice as well as the topic of revenge are at the core of numerous cop films produced in Hollywood, Donald Siegel’s Dirty Harry (1971) being one of the most famous examples of the genre. In this first of five films with the San Francisco-based detective Harry Callahan played by Clint Eastwood, the legal system is depicted as inefficient and not trustworthy, and in a final showdown, Harry shoots dead the serial killer Scorpio in a situation set up to make it seem a legitimate act of self-defence. Acting as a police officer in the line of duty, Callahan is portrayed as a modern vigilante who defends a system weakened by bureaucracy in which murderers seem to have more rights than victims. Repeatedly disregarding orders, Callahan is notorious for his independent actions, but unlike him, Mekari does not take the law into his own hands or exceed the limits of his power (7). He only once disobeys his immediate superior Ōki (Hirotarō Honda) by not taking Kiyomaru to the nearest police station but instead stubbornly insisting on delivering the prisoner to the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in Tokyo. He realizes that obeying Ōki’s order would result in Kiyomaru’s death. This determination is a further character trait that Mekari shares with Callahan and other American loner heroes, a determination that borders on obsession.
Keeping strictly within the law and his duty as a security officer who protects his charge – whether politician, VIP or murderer – Mekari saves Kiyomaru from a beating when Kamihashi, incessantly provoked by Kiyomaru, loses his temper. However, when he says: “No hitting, while we’re here”, Mekari suggests that he is not totally against violence and that, at the bottom of his heart, he hates Kiyomaru as much as Kamihashi does. His remark also hints at a wider social context in which police violence is not out of the ordinary, something that is stated more clearly in the novel.
A highly significant similar experience shared by Mekari and Callahan is that fact that both have lost their wives killed by a drunken driver. Without exploring Callahan’s life story, the mention of his tragic loss partially explains his obsessive dedication to his job. This makes the character part of Hollywood’s standard repertoire, but Callahan’s past experience and unresolved grief give him a greater depth and are also a clue to his aggressiveness. Miike explores this aspect of grief, showing Mekari in his flat where he behaves as if his wife were still alive. Numerous references in the novel reveal how much Mekari still lives in the past, unable to overcome his wife’s death. For him, time has stood still since she was killed. Kiuchi also repeatedly refers to Mekari’s death wish, expressed in inner monologues, but Miike only suggests it, Mekari saying that he has only been able to survive the last three years by focusing on his duty as a security guard. He claims that he is following what his wife once said, namely that his job is to protect others. Later, he states that she never said such a thing and that he invented it to be able to cope with his loss. In the world of his imagination, he has often killed the hit-and-run driver, and he admits to being the one of the five police officers who most wants to see Kiyomaru dead (8).
As a security officer, Mekari acts as a living shield for Kiyomaru, protecting him with his body on a number of occasions. However, the motif of the “shield” has a further meaning in Miike’s film – Mekari’s professionalism and determination to see the job through to the end are a shield for his wounded soul, a shield guarding him against his trauma that also prevents him from seeking revenge and breaking the law (9). Fighting their inner demons, both Callahan and Mekari tread the narrow path between good and evil. Their job alone is a means to shield them from turning into murderers.

Action and reflection
Kiuchi uses inner monologue to reveal Mekari’s psychological condition, his death wish and his inability to come to terms with his wife’s death. Miike contents himself with allusions and references in dialogues to reveal Mekari’s past and inner torment. In one sequence, the father of Kiyomaru’s first victim tries to kill the murderer of his daughter. Mekari hits the hysterical man in the stomach, forcing him to collapse. He then bends down to the man lying on the ground and apologizes to him, speaking in a soft, almost tender voice. The look on his face filled with pain shows his understanding for the man. Ōsawa’s restrained but powerful acting reveals how much Mekari is a multifaceted and even mysterious character who loses control only once when, towards the end of the film, he cannot bear Kiyomaru’s cruelty any longer and batters him with his fists while screaming out his pain and anger.
Acting contributes considerably to the portrayal of the characters in the film and clever mise-en-scène supports both the acting and the settings. Many of the scenes take place in narrow spaces – a room in the hospital, the interior of the carriage in the bullet train. Miike makes superb use of depth, with people in the foreground, middle ground and background. Long dialogue scenes are enlivened by the characters changing position within the frame. They give the actors the opportunity to communicate through their gaze, which is as telling as words. Dialogue scenes with close-ups, looking impressive in the widescreen format, alternate with fast-paced action. And shots of the train speeding through the countryside repeatedly create breaks in the action and serve as time jumps, which are numerous in the film. For example, when Mekari offers an alternative to the vehicle convoy that has turned out to be a fiasco, his strategy is not expressed verbally and instead its implementation is shown. First by a single shot of the convoy starting to move again, and then, after another cut, by a shot of Kiyomaru and the five officers boarding a train in a railway station. These two shots are enough to understand Mekari’s plan – the convoy continuing as a decoy whereas Kiyomaru is taken to Tokyo on a bullet train and accompanied only by Mekari and his four colleagues.

In conclusion
In the course of the action, a situation arises in which killing Kiyomaru becomes legal. A rumour spreads that Mekari and Shiraiwa are Kiyomaru’s hostages and killing him would now be considered a legitimate act. Ninagawa’s plan for revenge now seems to be succeeding, as if he had foreseen such a situation. But Mekari stands firm, demonstrating to Ninagawa, that money cannot buy everything and that his attempt to circumvent and bend the law is wrong. Mekari’s determined pursuit of his duty prevents further transgressions of the law as a result of the elderly billionaire’s interventions..
Shield of Straw does not express criticism of the death penalty and gives a rather stereotypical representation of the child murderer as a monster. However, it is also a film that deals with the fragility of the law and with individual and collective responsibility – a topic important to Miike that is also addressed in 13 Assassins and in Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai. Concerned with human feelings and human behaviour in an extreme situation, Shield of Straw is about the elusive dividing line between good and evil, about the fragility of this simplistic view and about trauma and revenge. The film’s final shot of Mekari and Shiraiwa’s young son reveals that the main protagonist’s physical and mental recovery from his ordeal has not been achieved by his relentless endeavours but is rather the result of a profound change in his life that embraces the fulfilment of duty but also human concern.

Notes
(1) Kiuchi is best known for his manga Be-Bop High School (Bi Bappu Hai Sukūru, 1983-2003).
(2) In the press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, where Shield of Straw was presented in competition, Miike explained that the scenes taking place in the bullet train were shot in Taiwan because the Japanese railway did not allow shooting in Japan for security reasons. The fact that Taiwan and Japan have the same high-speed train system was also helpful. The scenes on the motorway, requiring a great number of extras, were also shot in Taiwan because it was not possible to close motorways in Japan and feature such a large number of police vehicles. https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/wara-no-tate/
(3) See also Takao Ōsawa talking about this topic in the film’s press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/wara-no-tate/
(4) Capital punishment is still a possible sentence in Japan and is still enforced. However, this is often after more than two killings or after a particularly horrendous crime.
(5) In the film, this topic is touched on by Shiraiwa wondering whether security officers will use firearms for the first time in Japan’s history.
(6) As Eiko Ikegami writes, “The collective honor of the samurai class was in fact the symbolic architectural foundation of the Tokugawa bakuhan state.” (The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 212)

(7) See Ikegami, ibid., p. 212-213.
(8) In the novel, Mekari’s wife has died of cancer. The film implies a desire for revenge because of the fact that Mekari’s wife was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. Her violent death is, moreover, all the more tragic because she was pregnant.
(9) Unlike Callahan, who has killed in the past and at the end of the film shoots the murderer Scorpio, Mekari, who is practising shooting when he first appears in the film, has never killed, nor does he kill Kiyomaru.

 

by Andrea Grunert

The idea to watch Masayuki Suo’s A Terminal Trust (Tsui no shintaku, Japan, 2012) was born out of interest for the subject of medicine and the representation of doctors in Japanese cinema. The presence of distinguished actors such as Tamiyo Kusakari, Kōji Yakusho, Takao Ōsawa and Tadanobu Asano also served to pique my interest in the film. Nevertheless, I was unprepared for the profound effect A Terminal Trust would have on me, leaving me emotionally unsettled and haunted by its content and aesthetical beauty. This impact makes me appreciate the opportunity to share a few thoughts about Suo’s film on the Shomingeki blog.

Medical doctor and patient
A Terminal Trust is based on the short story “Tsui no shintaku” written by Tatsuki Saku. It deals with a case of euthanasia or rather “death with dignity” (1) provided to a terminally ill man. The story refers to cases of euthanasia in Japan, mainly the Kawasaki-Kyodo-Hospital-Case and the Tokai-University-Hospital-Case (2), the latter being mentioned in the film.
The main character of A Terminal Trust is the general practitioner Ayano Orii, played by Kusakari, who starred with Yakusho in Suo’s Shall We Dance? (Sharu wi dansu?, 1996). Orii is portrayed as a competent and sensitive doctor, a truly caring person. One of her patients is Shinzō Egi (Yakusho), a man in his early sixties who has been suffering from asthma for many years and whose deteriorating condition is becoming life threatening. During a conversation with Orii, he tells her that he does not want to be kept alive by tubes and begs her to let him die with dignity. A few months later, he is admitted, in a coma, to the hospital where Orii works. Without regaining consciousness, his breathing has to be assisted by machines. When Orii discovers that her patient has internal bleeding caused by a stomach ulcer, presumably due to stress, she asks Egi’s wife (Kumi Nakamura) for her consent to let her husband die.
Divided into two narratively and aesthetically distinct parts, the film begins three years after Egi’s death, when the judicial authorities started dealing with it. Orii is summoned by the public prosecutor Tsukahara (Ōsawa) who is in charge of the case. The first part, which lasts about an hour and thirty-four minutes, is mainly a long flashback consisting of Orii’s memories of various encounters between her and her patient, Egi, and of her private life. It also includes some sequences showing Orii in the waiting room of the prosecutor’s office and of Tsukahara in his office. The second part, which lasts about fifty minutes, focuses almost exclusively on Orii’s interrogation by the prosecutor.
The first part is mainly about the two protagonists Orii and Egi, and the relationship they develop during Egi’s frequent hospital stays. Egi is a well-educated man who likes European classical music, has been to Italy and speaks a little Italian. He is also a sensitive man who cannot help but notice how much Orii suffers from emotional stress. It is not certain whether he had heard the rumours about Orii that may have circulated in the hospital. She had attempted suicide after a failed love affair with her colleague, Takai (Asano). Egi lends Orii a CD of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicci and draws her attention to the aria “O mio babbino caro” (“Oh my dear papa”). As she listens to the aria, sung by a woman who expresses her wish to die if she is not allowed to marry the man she loves, Orii begins to cry. Later, Egi explains to her that the song is not about pure love, but is mere pretence. The singer mentions suicide only to frighten her father. Orii has to face her true intentions regarding her own suicide attempt. Was it just a show to frighten her unfaithful lover, the young and ambitious Takai? Instead, her suicide scene shows her deep confusion and desperation. Moreover, Takai’s behaviour is obviously that of an egoist, who has abused her feelings for him.
Doctor and patient develop feelings for each other without ever crossing the line into love or even sex. Their true feelings remain unspoken. It is all in the imagination, as the viewer decides whether they love each other. In one scene, Orii takes over the nurse’s job and washes the unconscious Egi, the only moment of physical intimacy, but one that also reveals the doctor’s helplessness and humility in the face of a situation in which she is unable to give the patient anymore medical help. Mutual respect and understanding characterize this very special relationship, which does not require words. In this relationship, in which neither of the two expects anything from the other, both can be free. Egi confides in his doctor about a childhood experience from the last days of the war in Manchuria, when his younger sister died from a bullet in the stomach. Only five years old at the time, he witnessed her long death and his parents’ despair.
The traumatic childhood memories and the reference to an unresolved war past exemplify the death motif that runs through the film. Orii’s suicide attempt is another moment in which death is evoked. Her love affair with her arrogant colleague Takai is a poisonous one. Takai insists on keeping it secret so as not to jeopardize his career. In one scene, they have sex in a hospital storeroom. After her suicide attempt, Takai cruelly dumps her.
Focusing on a handful of protagonists, A Terminal Trust presents highly nuanced human portraits in a mixture of poetic moments and detailed depictions of medical treatment, such as in the scene in which Orii’s stomach is pumped and also when she removes the tubes connecting Egi to the life-prolonging machine.
The memory sketches in which Orii meets Egi in the hospital and their last meeting on the riverbank, Egi’s favourite spot, form the main settings in the first part, during which Egi’s health deteriorates alarmingly. At one dramatic moment, he is struggling desperately to catch a breath. The chronological structure of the flashbacks, showing Egi and Orii, is broken by the scene set in Manchuria in 1945 – a flashback in the flashback – and some short sequences in the prosecutor’s office where Orii is summoned by Tsukahara. Waiting to be questioned, she recalls various moments with Egi, her love affair with Takai, her suicide attempt and Egi’s last moments.
The pace is generally slow, with the exception of the stomach pumping and the few scenes in which Egi is shown having severe breathing problems including his dramatic death scene. These scenes are filmed in long, fragmented segments with numerous close-ups of the procedures. These long painful scenes reveal how close doctor and patient are, both experiencing similar moments of stress and suffering.
The camera lingers on the characters for a long time. There are numerous scenes without dialogue or music. Music is diegetic when Orii listens to the opera CD. In a few scenes, soft piano melodies are used as background music. Long takes and slow movements, frequent shots of empty places – at the river bank, in the hospital or in the prosecutor’s office – and overwhelming silence create moments of great intensity. The employment of music and silence is particularly effective in illustrating Suo’s delicate handling of the relationship between Orii and Egi, making the deep understanding they have for each other emotionally palpable for the viewer.
The restrained acting of both Yakusho and Kusakari underlines the deep humanity of these two characters. Yakusho’s Egi is a friendly and caring man who does not want to be a burden to his family or his employer. This may be in keeping with the usual behaviour expected in Japanese society, of the individual submitting to the collective. Yakucho and Kusakari play their roles with great dignity, perfectly matching the slow rhythm of the film. One could say that the human portraits in this first part are not painted in vivid colours. The reduced palette of delicate blues, greys and beiges is reminiscent of watercolours. They create an atmosphere that evokes the fragility of the human figures and the transience of life.
While waiting for the prosecutor, the sky is leaden grey and the pouring rain that Orii observes as she looks outside adds to the sense of loss and grief that pervades the film. The river landscape that Egi loves so much reminds him of the seemingly endless expanse of the Manchurian steppe of his early childhood. The water flows seamlessly into the horizon, but it is as grey as the sky. In the scene where Orii and Egi meet on the embankment, we also see an industrial landscape, a power station or a huge factory, chimneys and towers on the other side of the river, blocking the view into the distance and signalling hopelessness. It should not be forgotten that the pollution caused by industrialisation has very negative effects on Egi’s health. A feeling of despair, heightened by ugliness, is also evoked by repeated shots of a tangle of pipes under a row of windows at the hospital.
The tubes and wires that connect Egi to various machines, and the tube inserted into Orii’s nose to pump her stomach, also have a menacing quality that seems to contrast with their humanity. There are some ingeniously composed shots, such as the one where Orii is reflected in the I.V. tube on her arm after her suicide attempt. The human being appears as a tiny figure in the infinity of existence, fully revealing Orii’s vulnerability.

The doctor and the prosecutor
The second part of about fifty minutes takes place almost exclusively in the office of the prosecutor. The spatial unity is broken just once and only for a very short time when Orii goes to the ladies’ room. And the last shots show her arrest after which she is led down a long corridor. At first glance, the mise-en-scène of this second part seems less varied. However, it is not less intense than the first one. On the contrary, the film’s oppressive mood reaches its climax in the interrogation scene. There are long takes of the characters, but Suo makes clever use of the restrained space. Editing, framing and camera movements, including travellings and panorama shots, add enough vivacity to the long scene to make it both appealing and unsettling. There is also the prosecutor’s young male assistant (Yoshihiko Hosoda), recording the interrogation. He observes Tsukahara’s manoeuvres with changing reactions, often taken aback by his superior’s pitiless attitude towards Orii.
The intimate nature of the interrogation scene and the slow pace, perfectly suited to the dramatic situation, create a constant tension, which is heightened by the lightening or rather the darkness that invades the room. At the beginning, the shutters are half-closed, letting in the dim light of a November afternoon. By the time the interview ends, night has already set in. The washed-out colours of the first part contrast with the gloom of the interrogation scene which creates a strong sense of impenetrability and hopelessness.
The interrogation in the dark, closed space, which creates a constant feeling of desperation and instability, is filmed as a duel between the prosecutor and Orii, one fought with unequal weapons. Orii is nothing more than Tsukahara’s prey. In one of the film’s first scenes, the outcome of the interrogation is hinted at the moment a pair of handcuffs, in one of the drawers of Tsukahara’s desk, is framed in a close-up. At the end of the film, Orii leaves the office in handcuffs. The highly allusive image from the beginning finds its conclusion. Tsukahara does everything in his power to have Orii charged with murder. Although she fulfilled Egi’s fervent wish to die with dignity, she has, in fact broken Japanese law. Euthanasia can be carried out when death is imminent and unavoidable or if the patient is in excruciating pain and there are no alternative methods of pain relief. There must also be a written statement of the patient’s wishes regarding the shortening of his life (3). Egi, however, only stated in a conversation with Orii that he did not want life prolonging measures if he was no longer conscious. Nor did any of the other reasons exactly apply to Egi’s case, as Tsukahara makes clear, even though Orii refers to his mental anguish and the stomach ulcer as a symptom of stress. Tsukahara insists on the lack of a written statement and the fact that Egi never expressed his wish to die with dignity to his family. He considers this act of mercy killing to be unacceptable. Katsunori Kai, a professor of law at Waseda University, writes: “This conduct is considered as a homicide in Japan (4).” Tsukahara acts within the law, but his portrayal as an extremely manipulative man who does not stop asking leading questions and constantly tries to intimidate Orii, makes him seen almost like the villain. He has already passed judgment on Orii who is at his mercy. Since he intends to build a murder case from the start – the arrest warrant is already prepared in a drawer of his desk –, all he has to do is wear Orii down so that she falls into his trap. He starts by deliberately making her wait a long time.
Besides Orii and Egi, the prosecutor is the most important character in the film. Instead of the gentle Egi, Orii now has to deal with the aggressive masculinity of an authoritarian personality. Ōsawa plays Tsukahara with fascinating intensity as an ice-cold, calculating man accustomed to power. The film gives him plenty of room for a multifaceted performance which dominates the long interrogation scene. At times he smiles smugly, at others he lords his power over Orii in anger, shouting at her, accusing her of lying, humiliating her and cleverly twisting her words, to the point where she finally breaks down in tears. But he is also an attentive observer, and not completely insensitive. When Orii mentions that she knows the feeling of helplessness that arises when a patient has a tube inserted or is unable to communicate his very feelings to the doctor, he immediately understands that she has attempted suicide. And he too, has thoughtful moments, which are reflected in his wounded expression. But he recovers very quickly and continues with his strategy to corner Orii. In a few moments, Ōsawa manages an almost imperceptible change of mood.

Some concluding thoughts
Tsukahara says dryly: “You confessed to murder“. Under Japanese law, the public prosecutor has considerable power, and Tsukahara is depicted as a man eager to use it. He insists that he is only interested in facts, facts that will allow him to accuse Orii of murder. This portrayal of the prosecutor as a villain makes it easier for the viewer to identity with Orii. However, Suo does not deny that Tsukahara acts according to the law. Moreover, the flashback showing Egi, having regained consciousness and struggling to breathe after Orii has removed the endotracheal tube, is an extremely violent moment that also casts some doubt on her judgment as a doctor who told Egi’s wife that the action would lead to a quick death. Suo’s sympathy for his female protagonist does not avoid the ethical and medical aspects of her decision, and depicts Egi’s death as a moment of great pain.
At the end, a text states that an entry in Egi’s diary was found and presented at Orii’s trial. In it, Egi said that he was entrusting Orii with his life so that he could die with dignity. The court accepted this as an expression of the patient’s refusal to have his life artificially prolonged. Nevertheless, the doctor was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and four years’ probation for violating the law, because the court did not consider Egi’s condition to be hopeless. However, the portrayal of Egi’s horrific death is also a burden that Orii has to live with and which has not let her unaffected. Without exploring the moral questions raised by euthanasia through dialogue, Suo insists on depicting emotions and his female protagonist’s inner torment. The gloomy atmosphere in Tsukahara’s office is not only related to the negative portrayal of the representative of justice who uses all his power to create a murder case. The darkness is also like a visual symbol of Orii, torn between her desire to fulfil Egi’s last wish and her feelings of guilt.

Notes
(1)Katsunori Kai points to the fact that Japanese law distinguishes between “euthanasia” and “death with dignity”. See Katsunori Kai, “Euthanasia and Death with Dignity in Japanese Law”, Weekly Bulletin of Comparative Law, 27,3 (2009),p.2. https://www.waseda.jp/folaw/icl/assets/uploads/2014/05/A02859211-00-000270001.pdf

(2) See ibid., p. 5-7 for further details.

(3) See op.cit. for further details, p. 2.

(4) See op. cit., p. 2.