Flawed but worthwhile

************這篇影評可能有雷************

The early half of the film stays focused, as an impeachment of mass media in modern society. The media inspires, and colludes in, the crimes, spurring the serial killers on with its sick fascination that is merely thinly veiled by cheap moral indignation. Towards the end, we come to the sick recognition that everyone, including the victims, become pulled in to play a pre-assigned role in the giant media game that many come to relish.

- "以前人都是用情感殺人。從今以後要用理智殺人。"
- "自然地存在，是一種觀念；殘忍而享受，也是一種觀念。"
Serial killers, cultists (religious fanatics) and pseudo-scientists, have this in common: a shallow, pedantic rationalism, built on excessive extrapolation of reason.

A notable weakness this film shares with 刑法三十九條 is the ability to maintain focus on a primary theme. As with the other film, this one is playing several parallel themes, but does not stay focused on the most profound: the media's amorality---one that borders on immorality, and its ultimate collusion in some of the worst crimes. This theme is often lost in the plot development, giving way to convenient sentimentalism.

The ending provides, unnecessarily, 3 over-convenient closures: (1) the moralist victory of 有馬, over 輞田, on TV; (2) the supernatural death of by explosion; (3) the reassuring union of the old man, the teenager, and the baby. These are three compromises too many, in my humble opinion. The first one is implausible for a sophisticated, twisted and arrogant criminal mind like 's. The second one removes us from the horror of the crime, by describing the criminal as different from us, for the worst horror is one committed by someone just like you, isn't it? As to the third, the attempted restoration of human warmth is too obvious and too contrived.

森田芳光 has truly inspired ears: soundtracks of his movies are always worth listening to, filled with seemingly irrelevant but often poignant sounds that illuminate the action of the protagonists. Example here: the disorienting techno music that reflects the society's interpretation of the killers' mind; or the song playing on the radio, "Loveletter from Canada", with a windower's notes on how the song reminds him of his dead wife......

The director is also a master of minute details: who else will take the pains to show the way paper wrinkles up, receiving the old man's teardrops? And the cuts and snapshots from TV commercials highlight the media, and therefore our, voyeurism. The two killers are deliberately revolting, and revolting complacent. The homo-eroticism is unmistakable.   舉報