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Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

Started by Chedney Honks, October 18, 2021, 10:34:40 AM

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Chedney Honks

Is this good? I've got it and want to watch it but don't know whether it's actually good to watch with my wife, who likes horror but only the most crossover foreign films, like Ring or Battle Royale, or if it's good in the way that people like me think things are good, with a load of caveats and deferred gratification.

Please no spoilers as I do intend to watch it.

Josef K

It's brilliant - suitably creepy and atmospheric. Some incredible performances too.
My only caveat would be that it does get a bit abstract towards the end (translation: I didn't fully understand it)

Chedney Honks

Cheers, that sounds like my kind of thing defo. Will report back.

zomgmouse

YES 10/10 GO IN KNOWING NOTHING YOU WILL HAVE A GREAT TIME

THEN WHEN YOU HAVE RECOVERED PLEASE WATCH PULSE

amoral

Watched this recently and loved it. Truly creepy in a way few films are. Beautifully shot as well.

Deliciousbass

One of the most feverishly unique films I've seen - I had sleep paralysis the night I watched it, love it

His other 90's/2000s films can be hard to track down but are definitely worth the effort.

Chedney Honks

Thanks for all the motivating comments. I did watch this a couple of nights ago and thought it was very very good.

Spoiler chat hereon in



While I was left with a few more questions than answers, I do think that abstraction and ambiguity adds to the haunting quality of the film here. It's the combination of certainty of evil and uncertainty of its nature. I can't see the monster under the bed, but I know it's there from what it's done.

That elusive threat also comes across through Mamiya's language and character. By trying to seek clarification and answers, people find that he isn't impenetrable, he's hollow, and their questions only reverberate back at them. Staring into the abyss.

I wasn't entirely sure about the final scene. I took it that Takabe had somehow taken on Mamiya's role, and had 'cured' the waitress in turn. Mechanically, I'm not concerned how that transference happened but I don't entirely understand why he would do that. I think there were a few climactic events very close together towards the end and I was somewhat hanging on. I'll definitely rewatch it to get a clearer sense, but I think the following happened:

- His wife went into care for dementia, and she didn't come out, perhaps died. This freed him of his burden and anxiety that he would come home and she would be dead. At the same time, this took away his role and persona as husband.

- He shot Mamiya, a sign that he had become susceptible to the cure. Was he then freed of the burden of the case? Or, further, did he lose his job and therefore his other role/persona as a cop? If he were left with no defined role or persona, was he also empty like Mamiya and free to cure other people?

Quite a lot of dots to join there and I still don't understand quite why he would make the final decision to cure other people. My only conclusion is that his own burdens and suffering within society caused him to reject moral expectations, as Mamiya had alluded to.

I appreciate that I've said one of my favourite aspects was the elusiveness and intangibility, and I've spent ten minutes trying to pin down the details. It's a fascinating film, though, and very atmospheric. I love that late 90s Japanese cinematography, so drab and drizzly.

I will definitely check out Pulse next.

TrenterPercenter

Yeah it is great Pulse is good too you will enjoy if you liked Cure.

chveik

Pulse is still scary af which is quite the feat given how much the internet has changed.

Osmium

His wife gets murdered I believe. I think it's right near the end, there is a quick shot of her carved up with an X. Cure is a great companion piece to Ring. Incredibly atmospheric, seems to be a dull hum throughout. The volume of wind, traffic, buzzing of lights etc. is raised to the point it becomes disconcertingly noticeable. I don't know if there is many other films that have made the sound of a washing machine so ominous.

Pulse is well worth checking out, it is again very atmospheric. Didn't hit as hard as Cure for me but I've only seen it once. Like Sono and Miike, Kurosawa is more miss than hit nowadays. Still got plenty of stuff worth seeing though. Along with Cure I would say Charisma (starring Koji Yakusho again) and Tokyo Sonato are top tier.

zomgmouse

part of the explanation for me is just how powerful and all-consuming the force is, that anyone trying to look into it too closely will get subsumed by it

chutnut

I remember buying this on dvd when I was a teenager on holiday in America cause you couldn't get it over here yet. I've still got it but havent seen it in about 20 years, I remember it being good though hth (even though you've already seen it)

Chedney Honks

Many thanks, it did indeed help.

Quote from: zomgmouse on November 07, 2021, 10:11:19 PM
part of the explanation for me is just how powerful and all-consuming the force is, that anyone trying to look into it too closely will get subsumed by it

Yeah, I really liked that and found the idea very unnerving, like, if I start turning the questions in on myself...brrr...albeit I enjoyed considering the possibilities.

Quote from: Osmium on November 07, 2021, 03:33:54 PM
His wife gets murdered I believe. I think it's right near the end, there is a quick shot of her carved up with an X.

I can definitely see that but would have to watch again to be see what it feels like to me. Quite a a lot towards the end seemed like a combination of visions, fears, fantasies and reality. Did it happen after he killed Mamiya perhaps? Who would have been motivated to kill her but himself? The doctor who listened to her again and again? All possibilities but I didn't feel certain of anything in particular.

Great observation about the hum, I don't think I did consciously notice it at the time but as soon as you mentioned it, I felt it. Thick, grainy atmosphere. Cheers for the other recs, too.

Deliciousbass

#13
STRAY OBSERVATIONS AAAAHHHOOOYYYYYYY:

Early on the detective suggests to the University lecturer that the murderers could be operating under hypnosis which he immediately dismisses because 'You can't make someone do something they wouldn't ordinarily do'. I always took that as the film setting up the idea that, despite modern conceptions of ethics/civility/progress, by nature anyone is capable of murder. Moreover, it doesn't take much to ignite that urge. The older policeman kills the younger because he finds him annoying, the doctor kills a random man because she's faced discrimination from other men.

There's that guy in the dry cleaners muttering bitter murderous thoughts under his breath who snaps into pleasantries when addressed.

Also, I like how the detective increasingly becomes unable to eat as the film progresses until the very ending where he happily finishes a full meal before "curing" the waitress.


chabrol

Quote from: Osmium on November 07, 2021, 03:33:54 PM
His wife gets murdered I believe. I think it's right near the end, there is a quick shot of her carved up with an X. Cure is a great companion piece to Ring. Incredibly atmospheric, seems to be a dull hum throughout. The volume of wind, traffic, buzzing of lights etc. is raised to the point it becomes disconcertingly noticeable. I don't know if there is many other films that have made the sound of a washing machine so ominous.

Pulse is well worth checking out, it is again very atmospheric. Didn't hit as hard as Cure for me but I've only seen it once. Like Sono and Miike, Kurosawa is more miss than hit nowadays. Still got plenty of stuff worth seeing though. Along with Cure I would say Charisma (starring Koji Yakusho again) and Tokyo Sonato are top tier.

Seconding the recommendation for Tokyo Sonata.

I think it's hard to argue with Cure and Pulse as the summit of his work; I found Cure one of the most compelling films I've seen, seeming to mimic the growing potency of the killer's mesmerisic abilities. I'd say it's worth checking out some of Mesmer's writings/theories in order to understand the film more- it certainly worked for me. It's been a few years so I'm more than a little hazy on it, but some of the research I did after on Mesmer's ideas about energy transference between beings/inanimate objects helped the thing click in to place a lot more. Part of what I love about the film is the drawing upon Victorian occultism/esoteric thought, and then re-strangening it by stranding it in a contemporary setting and a very different culture. It re-opens its possibilities.

Pulse is for me one of the great modern films; not only are its apparitions uniquely terrifying but the film is absolutely pervaded with the feeling of a specific sort of contemporary loneliness. The real world in the film, chillingly, drops away as suddenly and without notice as it probably does for many of those who lose themselves online (thinking of a certain Irish comedy writer here), and this dropping away, and the willing submission to the digital, could be read as a comment on current cinema itself. I don't think it's for nothing that Kurosawa counts some of the most physical and 'concrete' of Hollywood auteurs (Siegel, Aldrich, Peckinpah, early Richard Fleischer) as influences, alongside the more contemplative or even haunted figures such as Ozu and Tourneur.

There's definitely variations in the quality of his output, but he's never anything less than interesting IMO, and his handling of form is nearly always strong. As well as Charisma, Loft and Seance are also effective horror films (the latter continuing his fantastically surreal apparitions), Doppelganger is worth seeing for its absolutely wild tonal shift in the final act. Penance is a strong TV show, also. I need to catch up on his recent work; that last I saw was Creepy, which I liked.

Chedney Honks

I've only half read that post because I plan to watch Pulse very soon and want to go in as cold as possible but I really know what you mean about the Victorian esoterica. It wasn't jarring so much as unexpected and oddly 'otherworldly' because I was so engrossed in the mundane Japanese setting. Cheers for the nod to Mesmer, I didn't even know it was a real dude.

Also enjoyed Deliciousbass' observations, particularly Takabe finally tucking into some grub at the end! That thin veneer of civilisation is something I've often thought about too, I enjoy it as a theme, and it's something which really resonated here.

I also want to say it's really good to read contributions like these from people who don't post very often, so thanks for getting involved. Please post more, it's been cool.

Osmium

Quote from: Chedney Honks on November 09, 2021, 07:46:53 PMWho would have been motivated to kill her but himself?

That is how I interpret it. The scene is sandwiched between him listening to the phonograph after killing Mamiya and the end restaurant scene. It cuts abruptly from the shot of his wife to him putting fork to mouth -

Quote from: Deliciousbass on November 09, 2021, 08:40:23 PMAlso, I like how the detective increasingly becomes unable to eat as the film progresses until the very ending where he happily finishes a full meal before "curing" the waitress.

Perhaps freed of his burden like you mentioned above.

Chedney Honks

Seen like that, I completely see it. I think the death/loss/liberation/catharsis of his wife is the only thing to trigger such a transformation.

chabrol

Quote from: Chedney Honks on November 09, 2021, 09:56:48 PM
I've only half read that post because I plan to watch Pulse very soon and want to go in as cold as possible but I really know what you mean about the Victorian esoterica. It wasn't jarring so much as unexpected and oddly 'otherworldly' because I was so engrossed in the mundane Japanese setting. Cheers for the nod to Mesmer, I didn't even know it was a real dude.



Yeah, I totally agree on the otherworldly aspect of it. I barely knew Mesmer either before watching the film, but oddly enough, I was doing some writing on Dennis Potter at the time and found out that one of Potter's last and most unknown works was a screenplay for a film about Mesmer, starring Alan Rickman. Odd coincidence that almost made me feel like Kurosawa was trying to point me in the direction of something. Still never seen the Mesmer film though, so apologies Kiyoshi, whatever you were trying to tell me has never reached me.

Back on the Victoriana aspect, I've always thought I'd love to see Kurosawa adapt one of the writers from the British weird fiction tradition. It's tantalising to imagine what he could do with a Machen, Blackwood or (to go a little later, and maybe most of all) Aickman story. There's something in his sensibility that matches those authors in drawing the eerie out of/situtating the eerie in the mundane. Even the supposedly more realist Tokyo Sonata is saturated with that feeling.

zomgmouse

not quite Victoriana but he did do a film called Daguerrotype which is quite a Gothic tale involving long still photography

also his latest film is a 1940s piece called Wife of a Spy

Deliciousbass

Quote from: Chedney Honks on November 09, 2021, 09:56:48 PM
I also want to say it's really good to read contributions like these from people who don't post very often, so thanks for getting involved. Please post more, it's been cool.

This is such a kind and cool thing to say!

Enrico Palazzo

Creepy is another good one of his, and on Shudder.

Osmium

I remember being disappointed with Creepy. I would have to see it again to refresh why exactly, I can only recall thinking it was far too contrived to the point of annoyance. Teruyuki Kagawa was definitely creepy though.