The Eel

The guys at the video store assured me this movie was not to be missed. I have never seen a film by Japanese director Shohei Imamura, but he's well-known in Asia and respected around the world. I was going to check out another well-regarded film of his, The Pornographers, but my fellow clerks insited upon me that this was really the primo Imamura selection.

And I took their word on it. After all, the last employee selection I went with, Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels was terrific. These rentals are also free, after all.

Although I should note these guys argue fervently for the Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels, so we may not see eye-to-eye on everything movie-wise.



And while I admire much about The Eel, and remained interested in the movie for its full 2 hour running time, I doubt I'd eagerly recommend it to anyone. I watched it several hours ago and am still not sure how to take it. One thing I know is that it's certainly not the complete success advertised to me by zealous Laser Blazer attendants.

But it's not just my co-workers who were taken with The Eel. The film beat out favorite LA Confidential to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 1997. Not to mention winning a slew of Japanese Academy Awards.

And there is a lot to like in this strange, twisting story. A Japanese businessman named Yamashita (Koji Yakusho) receives a series of letters from a mysterious stranger, informing him that his wife has been cheating on him during his late-night fishing trips. So, one night, he cuts his fishing trip short and returns home early, sure enough finding his wife in the throes of passion with another man.

So, he does what anyone would do, and brutally murders them both with a butcher knife. The scene is surprisingly gruesome, and makes use of the same blood-spattering-on-the-camera technique that made the shootouts in Fallen Angels so immediate and affecting.

So, Yamashita turns himself into the police and goes to jail for 8 years. Upon his release, he leaves with nothing but the clothes on his back, the aid of a kindly old reverend and a pet eel in a plastic bag. He took the eel as a pet, he says, because it listens to him talk and doesn't talk back.

And from here on out, the movie basically becomes a romantic comedy. Which is weird, because the opening placed it, for me, in Hitchcock territory. Yamashita sets up a barber shop in a small fishing village (he learned to cut hair in the joint). Just as he's getting settled, he stumbles upon a girl, Keiko (Misa Shimizu), who has taken too many sleeping pills in an attempt to commit suicide. He saves her life and the two form an uneasy partnership, with Keiko helping Yamashita to run his barber shop and gradually becoming a part of his life.

All of this material is handled a bit languidly for Western tastes, but with the utmost concern for subtlety and character development. We slowly get to know the personalities of the village's residents, from the wacky delusional who waits to be contacted by aliens to the kindly fisherman who teaches Yamashita how to catch eels with a spear, to the creepy fellow ex-con who jealously reveals Yamashita's secrets to everyone.

Both Yakusho and Shimizu, as well, do a nice job of convincing us that these very different characters could find a way to relate to one another. Their performances are quiet and mellow, but heavily syncopated to one another. We get a sense early on, through body language more than dialogue, of how these two fit together into a domestic partnership. There aren't really romantic sparks between the two actors, but there is a clear sense of mutual appreciation and understanding. Just as Yamashita talks to his eel to avoid having to communicate with those around them, so too has Keiko shut herself off from humanity following an abusive relationship with the vile Dojima.

After the film has spent an hour easing the audience into the laid-back calm of Japanese country life, Imamura kick-starts his over-busy plot again, inventing a silly side-plot about embezzlement from Keiko's insane mother and intrigue involving her ex-boyfriend. And everything culminates in a series of slap-dash, poorly choreographed fight scenes which are played for laughs but fail to deliver on just about any level. And the film ends with a bizarre scene that seems to contradict all that has come before.

The Eel was an intensely frustrating film to watch. So much of it is carried off tremendously well. Despite their obvious quirks and the convenience of many of the characters in this village, I came to care for many of the people and enjoy watching a slice-of-life film about a community so foreign to my own. But the constant churning of Imamura's plot, and his insistance on switching genre and tone so rapidly, repeatedly refuse any attempt to actively engage his audience.

A prime example is the motif of Yamashita's eel. Upon his initial release from prison, the eel is his most valued possession and best friend. He speaks to it more than he speaks to anyone else, and spends most of his first day out of prison attempting to find it a comfortable bucket of water in which to rest. But soon after, the eel is practically forgotten about, a prop in the back of the barber shop until it is called into use again during the film's final moments. We never get a sense of what exact significance the eel had for Yamashita, whether he genuinely heard the eel responding to him or whether he merely liked to pretend. What we do get is a well-written but ultimately meaningless monologue about how eels migrate thousands of miles from Japan to spawn, only to have their offspring migrate all the way back.

I think the idea here is that, like migrating eels, human beings take paths in life that lead to all sorts of unpredictable destinations and outcomes. And despite where we have been before or what we have done, everyone deserves to have a chance to improve their lot, to be loved, and to prosper somewhere else, even if it's just a patch of mud in some other country.

And this is why the final scene, that seems to pessimistically imply that we all must deal with the life we are given, contradicts so much of what has come before.

So, The Eel is a confused and confusing effort. I'm surprised it was such a smashing success at Cannes, and not at all surprised it did not find an international following after its initial release. I will definitely rent The Pornographers next, if only because I appreciated so much of the style and honesty of Imamura's film, but I was definitely disappointed by this rather middling effort.