Director- Kobayashi Masahiro.This is the first film I have seen of his. For an intro, this work is a banger and has set insanely high expectations for me. The name of the film, Flic, is inspired by the French Film Un Flic directed by Jean Pierre Melville.This work reminded me a lot of Kurosawa Kiyoshi's works—particularly Serpent's Path, Cure, Pulse and Charisma. One can even compare his style to Ishii Gakuryuu's and Hamaguchi Ryusuke's.The film is filled with repetition of scenes and dream sequences, which makes this quite an interesting, albeit difficult, watch. The non-linear narrative structure adds another layer to the difficulty of understanding this work.Kobayashi lets shots linger, elevating our viewing experience, as this allows the viewer to connect with the characters more, as well as view how great their acting skills are.The opening of the film is quite captivating, with the death of a girl, named Michiko, by a chainsaw, due to the way it pushes us into the deep end from the start. It is shot quite voyeuristically, contrary to the rest of the film.This is my interpretation of the film, for which I took the help of fellow Letterboxd member Andre.The next shot of the film shows us the duo of the protagonist, Murata Kazuo, played by Kagawa Teruyuki, and his partner, Namekawa Ikuo, played by Tanabe Seiichi, travelling by car on the road. We see two cars on the road, a white one and a red one. The film doesn't make it clear which car is theirs, as throughout the film, the colour keeps being switched.The next shot we see is of the protagonist waking up due to a phone call. This is where the film really begins. The scene is shot in darkness, which initially makes one assume it is nighttime, but later we learn that it could also symbolise his bleak psyche.We later learn that Michiko was the protagonist's wife. He is shown to be dealing with the murder of his wife by drowning in alcohol. He suffers from schizophrenia and hallucinations as a side effect of his intoxication.The first hallucination we see is when the protagonist views his wife on the beach. The viewer can find out when he is hallucinating quite easily, as before he does so, he breaks the fourth wall in a close-up shot. Another reason for his breaking the fourth wall could be that it symbolises the rise of his suspicion towards Namekawa. The reason the duo is travelling is to get to a village where Michiko's brother, Kenichi, lives. He wasn't of much help to them and later died under mysterious circumstances. It may have been a suicide, but it doesn't make sense for the protagonist, as Kenichi is wheelchair bound.Murata is shown going to a bar, which is the major location of the film. We later learn that Michiko visited the place quite often. There, he meets a girl called Nobuko. The setting of the camera at the bar is quite interesting, as even though it does show the majority of the bar, it still leaves room for the characters to go off-screen.The film has a scene of Murata entering a room, walking towards the camera and then turning and entering a room. This may appear as dead weight to the runtime at the start, but the more it repeats, the more depth we get in it. The film also uses the same style of repetition with Pan Shots, unravelling bits of the scene slowly.At the bar, the protagonist interrogates Nobuko about Michiko, and we learn that she didn't work there but instead came there with different men. This makes us assume that she was in prostitution. After hearing this, he started hallucinating again to find out the answers about the incident. This time around, he envisions a young girl named Ai, played by the same actress as Michiko.The film draws parallels between the characters of Nobuko and Mitsuko, with Nobuko being used as a stand-in for Mitsuko throughout the film. For example, when she asks Namekawa whether they have met before, Murata becomes suspicious about whether he knew his wife, too, prompting him to ask Namekawa about how he got to the crime scene.Namekawa spoils that Mitsuko had a lover, and he might have been the one who hired a Yakuza to kill her. Murata believes that Namekawa was the lover. This prompts a scene where Mitsuko asks for a divorce from Murata. This, I think, is his imagination and was prompted by what Namekawa just said.We also see a scene from the day of her death where Namekawa wipes Murata's tears. This could have been used to demonise Namekawa even more due to the previous information we have on him through the biased lens of the protagonist.As the film progresses, the frequency of this increases, symbolising a decline in his sanity as he can't differentiate between hallucinations and reality and thus neither can we. This can be explained by Murata's Dialogue- "I can't sleep at night. If I fall asleep, I dream and wake up right away. Sometimes I don't know where I am. With my hallucinations, I see hostility in everyone." This is the first important point of the film.Thus, in his dreams, everyone is being hostile towards him, which makes the reality and fiction a bit easier to understand.When Namekawa is shown to leave the bar, Murata looks at the camera again, signifying that what we will see next will be his dream. Till this point, everything was still easy to understand for me, but from here on out, everything crumbles into one big cookie.He hallucinates Namekawa having and looking into Michiko's phone, which was due to what Nobuko told him. But she is also a figment of his imagination, so he basically hallucinated and told himself that the killer had her phone and then hallucinated again that Namekawa had the phone. This is a dream within a dream angle which reminded me of while surpassing Inception.Finally, we get a conclusion of him going to a room while moving towards the camera, with him going inside, and then shooting his wife and lover. What we see then is that the lover isn't Namekawa, as he was outside during the incident.This scene could be interpreted in three ways-1. Murata's wife was murdered, and Murata shot the killer.2. Murata's wife had a lover, and this lover hired a yakuza to kill her.3. Murata's wife had a lover, and Murata caught them and killed them both, with the help of Namekawa.To understand the right interpretation, we need to look at this line from the film- "Actually, what we call the truth, it exists in various ways." Thus, all three are the right ones, at the same time. This is the second important point of the film.The next hallucination is the best in my opinion, as it has all of Murata's suspicions made more severe. It has Saeki kill the innonwer with his gun and then later killing Namekawa. Saeki then calls Murata and says that he had asked Namekawa to kill Michiko. This shows us how deeply he believes this theory and how it is breaking him. It also shows us how everyone in his dream is hostile towards him, yet again.As Murata wakes up and leaves the bar, he gets attacked by someone, leading Nobuko to take him to her house. He learns that she used to live in Tokyo, which is another parallel drawn as Michiko used to live in Tokyo too.When Murata woke up the next day, he went to Kenichi's house. He saw a photo of Nobuko and Ai together. Nobuko had previously said that she didn't know her, and the photo had them wear the same clothes he saw them wearing at the bar. This makes me think that he is still dreaming.In this dream, he watches a film on TV with a serial killer, but imagines that he is watching the murder of Michiko, merging the two. This signifies his mind collapsing even more.He also comes across a punk hairstyle guy outside the house. He looked a bit like Asano Tadanobu to me.Murata then goes back to the inn, where the owner is now alive, as he died in a different dream. He gets a call from Saeki, who tells him that he killed Namekawa with Murata's gun. This makes both dreams be about the same thing, Saeki looking to frame Murata for a murder.To understand the true story, one needs to look at this line: "You take malicious pleasure in changing the story at will." This is the third important point of the film, which makes us question everything, as this takes his unreliable narrator self to a whole new level.The film then shows us a great Mexican standoff with the entry of Nobuko, a hostile version, as it is a dream. As Murata reaches for the gun, Nobuko shoots him with a shotgun.This makes Nobuko wake up in the real world, resembling Inception. He gets a call from Namekawa makes it clear that this is reality, as he had died in both the dreams.Just as he professed his love to Nobuko, she disappears, and the house becomes empty. We then see a visual of the dream where everyone, including the shotgun, has disappeared. This makes us question whether this was actually reality or if he is still in a dream. Is he, in reality, but now suffers from delusions?The ending has Murata travel in Nobuka's car, which is actually red. We see him pass a white car, which has him too. Thus, the ending is a paradox signifying that the fracture of Murata's psyche is too severe. He is now unable to differentiate between past and present, fact and fiction, reality and dreams, red car and white car.
The film's ending made me think that the whole reality we witness could have been a figment of Murata's imagination as well. He could have killed his wife, leading to his psyche being broken due to his being unable to cope with the guilt, similar to Mulholland Drive by David Lynch.The makeup of Namekawa, making him appear near dead, made me think that the whole film could have been set in Limbo, as everything at the end is left at neither here nor there.
Overall, this is one great film and is one of those types that left me forever changed. From its script to direction, everything is perfect and thought-provoking. This makes it the thirty-sixth 5/5 for me.
Director- Kobayashi Masahiro.This is the first film I have seen of his. For an intro, this work is a banger and has set insanely high expectations for me. The name of the film, Flic, is inspired by the French Film Un Flic directed by Jean Pierre Melville.This work reminded me a lot of Kurosawa Kiyoshi's works—particularly Serpent's Path, Cure, Pulse and Charisma. One can even compare his style to Ishii Gakuryuu's and Hamaguchi Ryusuke's.The film is filled with repetition of scenes and dream sequences, which makes this quite an interesting, albeit difficult, watch. The non-linear narrative structure adds another layer to the difficulty of understanding this work.Kobayashi lets shots linger, elevating our viewing experience, as this allows the viewer to connect with the characters more, as well as view how great their acting skills are.The opening of the film is quite captivating, with the death of a girl, named Michiko, by a chainsaw, due to the way it pushes us into the deep end from the start. It is shot quite voyeuristically, contrary to the rest of the film.This is my interpretation of the film, for which I took the help of fellow Letterboxd member Andre.The next shot of the film shows us the duo of the protagonist, Murata Kazuo, played by Kagawa Teruyuki, and his partner, Namekawa Ikuo, played by Tanabe Seiichi, travelling by car on the road. We see two cars on the road, a white one and a red one. The film doesn't make it clear which car is theirs, as throughout the film, the colour keeps being switched.The next shot we see is of the protagonist waking up due to a phone call. This is where the film really begins. The scene is shot in darkness, which initially makes one assume it is nighttime, but later we learn that it could also symbolise his bleak psyche.We later learn that Michiko was the protagonist's wife. He is shown to be dealing with the murder of his wife by drowning in alcohol. He suffers from schizophrenia and hallucinations as a side effect of his intoxication.The first hallucination we see is when the protagonist views his wife on the beach. The viewer can find out when he is hallucinating quite easily, as before he does so, he breaks the fourth wall in a close-up shot. Another reason for his breaking the fourth wall could be that it symbolises the rise of his suspicion towards Namekawa. The reason the duo is travelling is to get to a village where Michiko's brother, Kenichi, lives. He wasn't of much help to them and later died under mysterious circumstances. It may have been a suicide, but it doesn't make sense for the protagonist, as Kenichi is wheelchair bound.Murata is shown going to a bar, which is the major location of the film. We later learn that Michiko visited the place quite often. There, he meets a girl called Nobuko. The setting of the camera at the bar is quite interesting, as even though it does show the majority of the bar, it still leaves room for the characters to go off-screen.The film has a scene of Murata entering a room, walking towards the camera and then turning and entering a room. This may appear as dead weight to the runtime at the start, but the more it repeats, the more depth we get in it. The film also uses the same style of repetition with Pan Shots, unravelling bits of the scene slowly.At the bar, the protagonist interrogates Nobuko about Michiko, and we learn that she didn't work there but instead came there with different men. This makes us assume that she was in prostitution. After hearing this, he started hallucinating again to find out the answers about the incident. This time around, he envisions a young girl named Ai, played by the same actress as Michiko.The film draws parallels between the characters of Nobuko and Mitsuko, with Nobuko being used as a stand-in for Mitsuko throughout the film. For example, when she asks Namekawa whether they have met before, Murata becomes suspicious about whether he knew his wife, too, prompting him to ask Namekawa about how he got to the crime scene.Namekawa spoils that Mitsuko had a lover, and he might have been the one who hired a Yakuza to kill her. Murata believes that Namekawa was the lover. This prompts a scene where Mitsuko asks for a divorce from Murata. This, I think, is his imagination and was prompted by what Namekawa just said.We also see a scene from the day of her death where Namekawa wipes Murata's tears. This could have been used to demonise Namekawa even more due to the previous information we have on him through the biased lens of the protagonist.As the film progresses, the frequency of this increases, symbolising a decline in his sanity as he can't differentiate between hallucinations and reality and thus neither can we. This can be explained by Murata's Dialogue- "I can't sleep at night. If I fall asleep, I dream and wake up right away. Sometimes I don't know where I am. With my hallucinations, I see hostility in everyone." This is the first important point of the film.Thus, in his dreams, everyone is being hostile towards him, which makes the reality and fiction a bit easier to understand.When Namekawa is shown to leave the bar, Murata looks at the camera again, signifying that what we will see next will be his dream. Till this point, everything was still easy to understand for me, but from here on out, everything crumbles into one big cookie.He hallucinates Namekawa having and looking into Michiko's phone, which was due to what Nobuko told him. But she is also a figment of his imagination, so he basically hallucinated and told himself that the killer had her phone and then hallucinated again that Namekawa had the phone. This is a dream within a dream angle which reminded me of while surpassing Inception.Finally, we get a conclusion of him going to a room while moving towards the camera, with him going inside, and then shooting his wife and lover. What we see then is that the lover isn't Namekawa, as he was outside during the incident.This scene could be interpreted in three ways-1. Murata's wife was murdered, and Murata shot the killer.2. Murata's wife had a lover, and this lover hired a yakuza to kill her.3. Murata's wife had a lover, and Murata caught them and killed them both, with the help of Namekawa.To understand the right interpretation, we need to look at this line from the film- "Actually, what we call the truth, it exists in various ways." Thus, all three are the right ones, at the same time. This is the second important point of the film.The next hallucination is the best in my opinion, as it has all of Murata's suspicions made more severe. It has Saeki kill the innonwer with his gun and then later killing Namekawa. Saeki then calls Murata and says that he had asked Namekawa to kill Michiko. This shows us how deeply he believes this theory and how it is breaking him. It also shows us how everyone in his dream is hostile towards him, yet again.As Murata wakes up and leaves the bar, he gets attacked by someone, leading Nobuko to take him to her house. He learns that she used to live in Tokyo, which is another parallel drawn as Michiko used to live in Tokyo too.When Murata woke up the next day, he went to Kenichi's house. He saw a photo of Nobuko and Ai together. Nobuko had previously said that she didn't know her, and the photo had them wear the same clothes he saw them wearing at the bar. This makes me think that he is still dreaming.In this dream, he watches a film on TV with a serial killer, but imagines that he is watching the murder of Michiko, merging the two. This signifies his mind collapsing even more.He also comes across a punk hairstyle guy outside the house. He looked a bit like Asano Tadanobu to me.Murata then goes back to the inn, where the owner is now alive, as he died in a different dream. He gets a call from Saeki, who tells him that he killed Namekawa with Murata's gun. This makes both dreams be about the same thing, Saeki looking to frame Murata for a murder.To understand the true story, one needs to look at this line: "You take malicious pleasure in changing the story at will." This is the third important point of the film, which makes us question everything, as this takes his unreliable narrator self to a whole new level.The film then shows us a great Mexican standoff with the entry of Nobuko, a hostile version, as it is a dream. As Murata reaches for the gun, Nobuko shoots him with a shotgun.This makes Nobuko wake up in the real world, resembling Inception. He gets a call from Namekawa makes it clear that this is reality, as he had died in both the dreams.Just as he professed his love to Nobuko, she disappears, and the house becomes empty. We then see a visual of the dream where everyone, including the shotgun, has disappeared. This makes us question whether this was actually reality or if he is still in a dream. Is he, in reality, but now suffers from delusions?The ending has Murata travel in Nobuka's car, which is actually red. We see him pass a white car, which has him too. Thus, the ending is a paradox signifying that the fracture of Murata's psyche is too severe. He is now unable to differentiate between past and present, fact and fiction, reality and dreams, red car and white car.
The film's ending made me think that the whole reality we witness could have been a figment of Murata's imagination as well. He could have killed his wife, leading to his psyche being broken due to his being unable to cope with the guilt, similar to Mulholland Drive by David Lynch.The makeup of Namekawa, making him appear near dead, made me think that the whole film could have been set in Limbo, as everything at the end is left at neither here nor there.
Overall, this is one great film and is one of those types that left me forever changed. From its script to direction, everything is perfect and thought-provoking. This makes it the thirty-sixth 5/5 for me.
