Vengeance Is Mine Reviews

Great. Thriller, essay on assasination as a fascination. I love the encounter between Ogata and the old lady killer. Complete amorality is impossible, Iwao (great Ogata) has his affective and moving limits.

This is taken from my initial 2007 review of the Region 2 DVD for chud.com. The original formatting can be found here www.chud.com/13679/dvd-review-vengeance-is-mine-region-2/

Between October and December of 1963 a serial killer claimed five victims throughout Japan. These crimes would shock a nation and would ultimately inspire the book and subsequent film Vengeance is Mine. Starting with the capture of the killer, Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata), the film delves into his family history in an attempt to understand what motivated his crimes.

Vengeance is Mine is a hard film to gauge, part social drama, part thriller, it is impossible to classify exactly what genre it fits into. Certainly there are the tropes of serial killer movies to be found in the film, witnesses are interviewed, murders are committed, and the police pursue their suspect. But Shohei Imamura’s film is far more concerned with its central character and his relation to the world around him. As such despite elements of traditional police procedural thrillers, the film is more character study than anything else.

In the same way that Zodiac uses the central serial killer plot to comment on and delve into periphery characters, Vengeance is Mine uses the serial killer elements to comment on and explore its central character. The actual acts of violence in the film are rarely portrayed dramatically. Of the five victims, you only see three of the killings take place and even those are filmed in a detached, documentary like manner.

Documentary is a keyword when talking about Vengeance is Mine. Shohei Imamura came to direct Vengeance is Mine after working on a number of documentaries. His speciality was in looking at the seedier, less presentable side of modern Japan, a stance he took in direct opposition to Yasujiru Ozu whom Imamura had assisted early on in his career. Imamura had become increasingly uncomfortable with the refined and restrained way that Ozu, perhaps one of the most famous voices in Japanese cinema, presented modern Japan whilst working under him.

The two directors would both explore similar themes, exploring elements of Japan in sociological terms, but would employ different styles. Ozu made immaculate movies whilst Imamura favoured messy films; he found a truth in the disorder whereas Ozu found truth through order. It was after the financial failure of his self funded feature The Profound Desire of the Gods that Imamura moved into making documentaries. The decade spent making documentaries would have a dramatic impact on Vengeance is Mine.

Chud’s own Devin Faraci coined the term neo-factualism during his musings on United 93. Neo-factualism was Devin’s way of describing the method in which a director would stage a work of fiction based on true events with utmost accuracy, but would allow actors to interpret characters as they wished. As such he sacrificed factual truth to create a deeper emotional truth, whilst presenting a reasonable interpretation of what actually transpired. This idea of interpretative performances being used in a factual framework is also used in Vengeance Is Mine and proves to be the films strongest point.

The film is based on the real life exploits of conman and serial killer Akira Nishiguchi. Liberties are of course taken, the most obvious of which is a switch of the killers name to Iwao Enokizu. The film builds upon its true story roots with a style that is documentary like. Pieces of information are relayed in clipped text, the camera is often used in a way that doesn’t bring attention to itself, favouring almost voyeuristic compositions and natural tracking shots above all else. The acts of violence in the film are documented in a calm disassociated way, mimicking the killer in a way but serving more to establish and maintain the documentary tone. It should be noted that the film does break away from its established tone at times (notably the wonderful Bernard Herrman styled score and the truly peculiar ending scene). But these seem to exceptions for palatability more than anything else.

What this disaffection does is allow the film to move away from being a standard police procedural thriller. Vengeance is Mine is far more concerned with examining its central character. In fact the initial sequence of the film, Enokizu being brought to justice in January 1964, would be the climax to a standard thriller. The rest of the film is told via flashback and in doing so it removes the initial tension of the investigatory scenes. One of the most interesting conceits in the film is the way in which it tells the story through lines of thought. The film has no chronological fidelity, flitting between different times and places at will, largely because each flashback is linked into what Enokizu is thinking about. As such each flashback represents a thought process and whilst it is initially hard to get a grip on the nature of the plot it serves to allow the audience a greater insight into Enokizu’s head.

Trying to understand and rationalise Enokizu is the main thrust of the film, and it proves to be an extremely difficult task as the film doesn’t allow itself to provide easy answers. There’s a sense that he’s a bit troubled anyways, and issues with his father seem to exasperate the problem even more so. The first half of the film is devoted to Enokizu’s family life. Stretching from his childhood to a few months before his initial murder the first section of the film sets out to lay the foundations of the man Enokizu will become. In doing so it sets up certain character traits that will become extremely important later on in the film. Chief amongst these is the fraught relationship with his devoutly catholic father and a general disrespect for authority in general.

The second half of the film follows Enokizu as he flees from the police following his initial murders. What’s interesting about this section is that we’re never shown Enokizu’s crimes, details of the frauds are relayed via text but the actual footage shown only details his interactions with the denizens of a seedy hotel he finds himself staying in. The film never allows us to forget about Enokizu’s criminal nature, his third killing isn’t depicted on screen but the aftermath is shown in almost comedic fashion, but it relegates them so that they are merely context for the onscreen action.

There’s never a doubt that Enokizu isn’t a truly horrifying character, but the film separates the character from his crimes in an attempt to try and understand the psyche of the killer. It is hard to pinpoint how successful this is largely due to Ken Ogata who in his breakout role crafts Enokizu into a remarkably fascinating and strangely sympathetic character.

Ogata, who many will known as the titular lead in Paul Schrader’s biopic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, is truly remarkable in the lead role and it becomes hard to distinguish how much work is being done by the film and how much is being done by the actor. Certainly Ogata seems to be the emotional core of Vengeance Is Mine despite how distanced the character is.

The only person who comes close to matching his screen presence is Rentaro Mikuni as Iwao Enokizu’s father Shizuo. The conflict between Iwao and Shizuo defines Vengeance Is Mine and it is because of Mikuni’s stately and conflicted performance that it works so incredibly well. Both men are deeply wounded and the fact comes across differently in both performances, whilst Ogata excels with his dispassionately intense depiction of Iwao, Mikuni counters with a depiction that is just laced with deep seated sadness and regret and the subsequent conflicts between the two are what make the film so outstanding.

Vengeance is Mine is an actor’s film, made with extreme care and precision but defined by two central performances which are just spellbinding. It is an enthralling work, brutal, witty, dark and honest and I’d have no hesitation in calling it a true masterpiece of not just Japanese cinema, but cinema in general. But it is not a film to everyone’s taste and viewed as a simple thriller it is immediately dissatisfying, it is a character study more than anything else, just a character study which involves vicious hammer beatings.