User reviews

Takura Yamashita (Koji Yakusho) has served eight years in prison for murdering his wife and her lover in a jealous rage and attempts to rehabilitate himself by opening a barbershop in an isolated corner of Japan. His past, however, catches up with him in Shohei Imamura's The Eel, co-winner of the 1997 Cannes Palme D'or with Kiarostami's A Taste of Cherry. Based on the Akira Yoshimura's novel Sparkles in the Darkness, The Eel is either an absurdist comedy, a drama about redemption, a surreal poem about states of consciousness, a thriller about jealousy and revenge, or all of the above.

As the film opens, Yamashita, a worker at a large flour company, is startled to read an anonymous letter on the train coming home from work informing him that his wife cheats on him when he goes away on overnight fishing trips. Cutting one of his trips short, he returns home in the middle of the night to find his wife Emiko (Chiho Terada) in bed with a lover. Grabbing a butcher knife, he brutally stabs both of them to death then calmly rides his bicycle to the local police station and turns himself in. After eight years in prison, he is released and paroled to an elderly Buddhist priest. Alienated and afraid, Yamashita's only companion is a pet eel whom he confides in ("he listens to what I say"). He opens a barbershop in a rural part of Japan but his life becomes complicated after he saves a young woman, Keiko (Misa Shimizu), from suicide and gives her a job at his shop. Reminded of his former wife, Yamashita avoids intimacy but she is drawn to him nonetheless and offers him box lunches when he goes fishing.

In spite of trying to keep his distance, Yamashita attracts some local characters that move the plot in a different direction. These include a young man who borrows his barber pole to attract UFOs, a fishing buddy who designs a device to catch eels without harming them, and his former prison mate, Tamotsu Takasaki (Akira Emoto), a foul-mouthed drunk who recites Buddhist Sutras and reminds him of his previous acts. The story, which until now has had a rich dramatic arc, soon descends into forced comedy when Keiko's mentally-challenged mother shows up doing flamenco dances and Keiko's former boyfriend returns demanding her mother's money. The townspeople and semi-gangster associates of the boyfriend join in a final free-for-all at the barbershop that might have been lifted from the Three Stooges.

The Eel is at times a brilliant and involving character study about a man seeking to turn his life around. At other times, however, it is a discordant conglomeration of plots and subplots, one-dimensional characters, and heavy symbolism relieved only by wooden farce. The UFO sequence is very lame and the comic behavior of a man just out of prison seems inappropriate as he marches like a soldier then runs after a jogging team that is passing by. Imamura has said, "If my films are messy, this is probably due to the fact that I don't like too perfect a cinema." I know that things are not always neat and our lives are often a blend of drama and farce, but The Eel's odd mixture of quirky characters and widely disparate elements keeps it from coming together as a satisfying whole.

Takuro Yamashita, played very effectively by Koji Yakusho, gets an anonymous letter telling him that his young, pretty wife is entertaining another man while he is out fishing at night, this after she lovingly prepares and packs his supper. He goes fishing but returns home early in time to catch her in medias res. In a cold rage he knifes her to death. He bicycles to the police station and turns himself in. Eight years later he gets out of prison. This is where our story begins.

Yamashita, now embittered toward others, especially women, is on parole. He sets up a barber shop in a small town. He keeps a pet eel because he feels that the eel "listens" to him when he talks. One day he discovers a woman (Keiko Hattari, played by the beautiful Misa Shimizu) in some nearby bushes who has taken an overdose in a suicide attempt. He brings the police to her and she is saved. She becomes his helper at the barber shop and is so efficient that the barber shop prospers. She falls in love with him but because of his shame and bitterness, he cannot return her love.

This is a film about human sexuality. It is not pretty. The eel itself (a wet "snake") symbolizes sexuality. When this sexuality is confined it is under control. When it is let loose it is dark and deep and mysterious. Director Shohei Imamura's technique is plodding at times, and striking at others. His women are aggressive sexually even though they may look like little girls. His men can be brutal. Their emotions, confined by society as the eel is confined by its tank, sometimes burst out violently.

For many viewers the pace of this film will be too slow, and for others the sexuality depicted will offend. For myself and others who are accustomed to seeing the faces of the players in long close ups on TV and in Western movies, Imamura's medium shots and disinclination to linger on the countenances of his actors will disappoint. Yakusho's face suggests the very depth and mystery that Imamura is aiming at, yet I don't think the camera lingers there enough. Also disappointing is how little we really see of Misa Shimizu's expressions. Chiho Terada, who plays the murdered wife, is also very pretty and completely convincing, but we see little of her. Her expression just before dying, a combination of shamelessness and resignation, funereal acceptance even, was unforgettable.

This is very much worth seeing, but expect to be annoyed by the how slowly it unravels and by the central character's stubborn refusal to forgive both himself and his late wife and his inability to embrace the life that is now his.

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I actually enjoyed the film a lot. Maybe it's not one of the most articulated films, but there was liveliness in it,and i think that's the reason the eel got cannes. The lives of misunderstood,isolated finds the peace with themselves in a remote country side, reminded me of Mediterriano a bit. The man's murder, suicidal heroine and her mad mother, a guy who is obsessed with UFO, which seems unexplainable and their lives are narrated in a messiest possible way. I think this film is not for analysis or for coming to conclusion, the director wants to show a utopia where misfits can be forgiven and find a harmony with the world, where a human communicates with an eel. And where people can have a chance to get redemption,,,

THE EEL borders on dark humour when a man, who after eight years in prison for the murder of his wife, is released from jail. He sets himself up in a barber shop by the river and trouble comes knocking on his door and he can not seem to get away from it. Simple, yet effective, a very mature piece of work and pleasing overall.

The Eel does something so imaginative and effective in the way it tells its story. It really makes the audience interact. Explaining this would ruin its effect, a sort of thing rarely experienced anymore in filmgoing. It's difficult to find movies that actually redirect your thinking and stimulate you and make you suffer in that great, fulfilling way. So, I will leave you to take my word for it. What is amazing about what The Eel does is how it really enlightens the audience when it comes to the judgment and expectations of characters. The Eel probes meticulously and sneakily the strange progression of a person.

Shohei Imamura, the film's cunning, subtle, and seemingly offbeat director, fashions the opening murder with what is in the first nanosecond of reaction aggravating and promptly recognized as a brilliant little effect. As the movie's main character stabs his cheating wife to death after slashing her frightened adulterous lover, blood sprays all over the camera, the scene becoming skewed and blurred through the bloodied lens, forcing us naturally to want to peer around it to see as clearly as we can the violence the character continues to commit. And at that point we realize, as is Imamura's intention, that we are the audience and that there is the movie, and that we are voyeurs who so badly anticipate such things as the passionately vindicating slaughter of a coldly adulterous lover. And from there, Imamura exploits the weakness he knows we have, but in what way cannot be predicted.

Later in the film, Imamura stages a ballistic, ungraceful fight that includes many characters, but with a relentlessly stationary camera. No matter how intricate certain actions get, he refuses to let it be anything more than observed. His intentions are all to make us conscious of what we are thinking as we watch these scenes. It's a creative intelligence applied more and more rarely all the time.

The cast is very carefully balanced. Certain characters are animated, some eccentric, some very stoic, and some are combinations of all three, yet they never become even remote resemblances of clichés. They are all meant to oppose or serve as comparison to each other in nature and chemistry.

Another plus is the film's purposely awkward, infectiously gawky musical score that, like most music in Japanese films, is recurrent and sustained, a repeated series of only a handful of melodies that are very memorable.

I have had a hard time finishing this movie. All the technological aids that Hollywood would not omit, while creating even the cinema of the most influential themes and we are used to seeing, make us harder to watch the cinema in it's purest form. And this transformation of pleasure from the pure form to the polluted is not necessarily a change for the better. I am personally a movie eater! Not a watcher. Movies are my only form of spending time when I am not at work. I have seen works (masterpieces for most) of Kurosawa. I can understand why he has not chosen a technologically more complicated making of cinema. Contemporary japanese cinema may not be suffering from financial difficulties, the decision to make a movie like "The Eel" is probably depending on raising or even erecting the cinema on its essential natural elements, rather than corrupt, artificial ones.

I tried to spoil my girlfriend, who studies Japanese culture, with a film and it worked! Unagi (the Eal) tells a story of man who commits a 'crime passionelle' by murdering his wife. When he leaves prison the guards bring him 'his' eal. Under supervision of a local priest he tries to live a peaceful peasant-life in a place where nobody knows about his past; he becomes a barber, the eal is his friend ('they never say things you don't like..'). The situation changes when, on instigation of the priest, a girl starts assisting him in his shop. Inevitable his dilemma's come back...

I loved this film for it reminded me much of the films of the Dutch director/producer Alex van Warmerdam; the ordinary, tightly directed up to every detail, the sufficating dilemma's lightly woven thru. Modern drama at it's best!

I might have given it a higher rating had the film admitted its own hollowness. When this film tried to dress itself as something deep things start to get worse. All the life philosophies preached by it via 'the reel' is nothing more than mere commonsense, and far-stretching to the theme story, to say the least.

During the viewing I wished that the director had bothered to show us what exactly the main character spoke to his eel when they two communicate, because the eel seems the only connect he had and mean a lot to him. Then we might be able to understand the main character a bit better, and understand the tie between him and his eel better. However, the one and only time we see this is: the main character crouched by the side of the glass tank and asked the eel with a tender voice, with his face full of concern and with the presence of a neighbour, "Do you like it here?" The whole scene is so absurd and out of place that it hurts.

What bothered me most is the attitude of the main character towards his crime. It is so important that it forms the foundation of the entire film. Therefore a weak and blurred conception will undermine everything. But again the director hauled us a muddled mess.

Now it is left to ourselves, we seemingly have two options to work with. First, he repented his murder. Then what we see basically from the film is how a man's murdering of a woman is redeemed by accidentally saving another woman's life. Due to the fact that everything about the saved woman happened totally independent of the main character (Not much happened in the film actually, mind you), and no sacrifice or endeavour of any form is required from him, the redemption seems cheap and convenient to the viewer.

Then if we come to the second conclusion that he never repented, we are then facing a more intimidating mentality. Why does the main character deserve the 'happiness' by the end of the film? Had the main character really killed his wife out of hallucination? Is the director hinting on the impending of another tragedy? The undertone of the film will then be entirely altered. But the ending of the film, where the saved woman watches smilingly and peacefully the car driving away in the warm dusk after handing over the lunch bag, is blatant enough to overthrow this consumption. On the other hand, if it is the conviction of the director that the merciless crime committed by the main character is forgivable after only 8 years prison, he does not give enough clue to justify it. We never get a chance to hear the murdered wife's self-dependence in front of the appending kitchen knife. From the very little information we get about the murdered wife, she seems, if not faithful (that is, if the adultery DID happen), at least a caring and competent housewife and there hasn't been any serious confliction between her and the main character.

If the stoic personality of the main character, though forgettable and one dimensional, can manage to make sense, all other characters in the film verge from bizarreness to insanity. Many, especially the mad mother, should be left out for good. No one can simply stands for logic. For example, the saved woman. What caused the transformation from her being desperate and suicidal before to suddenly optimistic and strong in action after? How come she, as a daughter of a rich family, has experience of working in a barbershop? And most importantly, what aroused her affection towards the main character, besides the fact that he spotted her body and called the police, therefore indirectly saved her life? If the binding up of the cut finger can be looked upon as a sort of set up for this plot development, then it comes as abrupt and trite as all other plot developments in this film. The concern from the distant main character over that cut finger feels sudden and out of nowhere. Did the director forget that his character is determined to shut himself in and keep distance from everyone else, especially woman?

All puzzles, no satisfactory answers given...... Maybe the biggest puzzle is how on earth did this garbage win in Cannes that year? This is not a satisfactory film. This film failed in almost every aspect, like most of other contemporary Japanese films.

This film deals with the theme of faith, its loss, its recovery. It has strong images, as usual in Imamura's films. It has also a well thought out plot development. But... it hints at directions that are never fully explored. There is a suggestion that the main character is insane. There are hallucinations. Keiko's behavior is also a little obscure at times. But as the core of the movie is melodrama, surreal aspects are only hinted at. That leaves a slight sensation of unachievement.

Before "The eel" I saw two other films of Shohei Imamura. "The ballad of Narayama" (1983), who won the Palme d'or in Cannes, and "Black rain" (1989). Imamura belongs to the new wave generation of Japanese directors after the war generation (Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi) and the post war generation (Kobayashi, Ichikawa and Shindo) had put Japanese films firmly on the map of the world of cinema. Imamura was at its peak during the eighthes (beginning with "Vengeance is mine" (1979)) and nineties (ending with "The eel" (1997)).

With "The eel" Imamura won the Palm d'or for the second time and it was also a favorite movie of a film teacher regularly performing in my local arthouse cinema. Especially the last mentioned reason made me curious to see the film.

"The eel" is a film about crime, punishment and redemption. Especially about redemption as the crime and punishment elements are dealt with in the first quarter of the movie. A man finds out about the adultery of his wife, murders her in a fit of rage, turns himself in to the police and serves eight years in prison.

His release from prison is in effect the real beginning of the movie. It is obvious that the man (Takura played by Koji Yakusho who also played in "Shall we dance?" (Masayuki Suo) the year before) has been damaged psychologically. When released he continued to walk at marching pace for a while and he only talks to his pet eel.

After a while he meets a woman (Keiko played by Misa Shimizu). She obviously likes him, but he keeps treating her very detached. When she makes him a lunch box for his fishing trip he simply refuses to accept. What is the reason behind his behaviour? Resembles the new woman his former wife too much? After all his former wife also made a lunch box for his fishing trips and subsequently betrayed him with her lover when he was out fishing. Or does he no longer trusts himself in a relationship with a woman? Is he of the opinion that he does not deserve a second chance in love? And what about the woman? Why does she hang on to a man that treats her so coldly?

A lot of questions about these two persons slowly growing towards each other and towards a normal life. The problem is not so much that the film does not give clear cut answers. The problem is that the film distracts too much from this (in my opinion central) relationship by a lot of crazy actions by crazy people, especially in the last 30 minutes.

Finally a compliment for the photograpy. Making beautiful images of a beautiful landscape is easy. Making beautiful images of a somewhat littery landscape is much harder. The images of the nightly fishing expeditions after the release from prison are very atmospheric.

'The Eel' proved how the director Shohei Imamura is good at describing life-sized characterization and mental state. The main character's suspicion, madness, kindness and love, are closely related to what we have inside. Which made me sympathetic and devoted to the character. Shohei Imamura described the main character's complication by using the character's delusion. And, the usage of psychological and fantastic images strongly helped to express the human mind. 'The Eel' is a unique human drama.

The Eel tells a story about a Japanese man who copes with his guilt after committing a crime. (I won't go into details on the crime, that's for you to find out) The way he does this is what makes this movie a great one in my book. Not only does he turn himself in after the crime (with a great way of response by the police) he even makes a friend out of an eel in prison. Hence the name of the movie. Once outside the prison he tries to build up a barber shop and get his life back on track.

The film is carried by its character interactions. Apart from these there is nothing else in this film, so for those who don't like dialogue don't bother with this film because you'll be bored.

For the others, who like a story carried by characters, this surely is a must. The only flaw for me was the presence of a quirky UFO nut, but that's minor.

And please watch the original version with subs and not some gruesome dubbed version. I never understood the appeal of a dub.

This was a very engaging film about a guy who murders his cheating wife and then is released from prison 8 years later. You really find yourself rooting for him--especially when he meets and saves the life of a lady. You really want them to get together,...the problem is, he is SO afraid to open up to people that he distances himself from her and chooses to confide more in his pet eel. It seems that if he does connect to someone on a deeper level, he's afraid he might kill again--though he is clearly a decent person who snapped one time in his life and only after being pushed. It's a great character study and the acting and direction are marvelous--with a few lapses here and there. What didn't I like? Well, it isn't so much the acting that's the problem, but the script. Repeatedly, flashbacks and psychotic-like hallucinations occur. They tend to muddle the basic message and confuse the plot. Without these and without the LARGE amounts of blood in the murder scene, this would have gotten a rating of 9 or even 10.

I would compare this to Talk to Her and Heaven. The protagonist commits a terrible crime but turns out to be a likable guy. The murder is over and done with quickly.

After that, I laughed a lot. This is more of a romantic comedy than a drama. The characters are somewhat over the top, especially Keiko's mother. The weird thing is the chaste romance story. The lack of PDAs and kissing in a movie with sex and nudity is disorienting. High contrast between a reserved, traditional Japanese culture and frank subject matter. Not for kids. Beaultifully shot. The director is world famous for good reason.

Some parts are terrible and stupid, but many are fascinating. I hated and liked it from time to time, and wanted to fast-forward, but I couldn't. You have to endure it to see what I mean. A few parts are unforgettable, and more than a few are quite forgettable.

Within the first 15 minutes we see the protagonist commit the grave act, go to prison, and be paroled, and the meaning of the title is revealed. 'The eel' wastes no time on exposition, moving quickly into the meat of the plot. It's at once, quiet, peculiar, and captivating.

Every character has very unique personalities, not least of all protagonist Takuro Yamashita (Koji Yakusho) and chief supporting character Keiko Hattori (Misa Shimizu). But so it goes for almost everyone: somewhat lacking in social skills and graces, yet finding a measure of kinship in their idiosyncrasies as they struggle with their individual circumstances. There's a decidedly playful bent to the film, almost to the point of being mildly fantastical.

At all points 'The eel' is weirdly entrancing, The cast is excellent, capably realizing their distinct characters in all their eccentricities. Filming locations and set design is swell, rounded out with fine decoration. Anchored by a great cast and offbeat characters, the narrative is slightly quirky, not unlike more familiar sardonic comedy-dramas - though this is notably darker all the while, as there's a murkiness hiding behind the oddities. The film-makers manage to balance the picture's varied elements with greater dexterity than we generally anticipate from features of this nature.

Despite myself, it's difficult to discuss further without betraying plot points. Suffice to say this is a delightful, strangely endearing movie that exceeds any imagined limits of genre, language, or timeliness. I stumbled onto 'The eel' by chance, and walk away quite pleased: This is well worth seeking out to watch.

In the majority of movies I am most attached to the relations between characters and the evolution of this process. 'The eel' for that part is quite interesting as it focuses on a male protagonist with a dark past and a female counterpart equally in troubles.

I was moved by the convincing performance by the two main characters. Besides them there are are only few, some really odd, other persons acting in the story.

As others mentioned before in most parts of the movie the pacing is slow as it can get. This is not unusual for cinema from Asia and I am really comfortable with it, regarding this as some kind of watching meditation experience.

The shooting is at times beautiful and stunning - the violent scene at the beginning or the colorful, vivid, surrealistic looking field of flowers the man finds the woman.

Disliking programmed happy endings of romantic Hollywood movies I enjoyed the unfolding narration of 'The eel' having no clue what is going to happen next and in the end.

Without the one situation which I found weak (one reviewer stated it as slapstick - the 2nd struggle in the barber's shop), there are numerous magical and disturbing moments in this movie.

I fully recommend viewing Shohei Imamura's little gem.

(1997) The Eel/ Unagi (In Japanese with English subtitles) PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA

After enjoying Koji Yakusho in "Shall We Dance?"- I wanted to see more Koji's films and came across this extremely odd and fascinating character study of a grown man and his attachment to his pet eel(never mind how it came about)!! The real question is how long can he sustain this kind of an odd relationship! The story from the novel by Yami Ni Hirameko co-written and directed by Shôhei Imamura is definitely has a strange cinematic feel to it that while watching this, that if anybody were to seek any kind of resolution may be gravely disappointed about the film's ending. And I have to say that some of the best films don't have to require any kind of resolution at all but offer viewers some other psychological options!!! After all of these years, they're still scenes on this film that I just couldn't forget.

I HATED this movie. It opens with an incredibly gruesome murder scene, then goes on to imply that it's really not so bad to kill someone, as long as you "have a reason". Oh, and everyone will forgive you for it afterward, even if you don't show any remorse.

The characters' motivations are weak: an entire village falls in love with the hero, although he hardly says two words the entire film. The main female character inexplicably prefers washing old men's hair and making her boss' lunch to being a successful businesswoman in the city. And why is it that the murderer has so little trouble dealing with his own crime? Could it be because he's a psychopath? Probably, but we never find out for sure, because the filmmaker never goes beneath the surface to explore anything. Instead, he constantly changes tone, going from a Bill Forsyth sort of whimsy to inferior attempts at Hitchcockian suspense.

Some of the acting is good, but the star of the much better "Shall We Dance" gives a wooden performance here.

Some of my problems with the movie may have come from cultural differences. The murderer gets only 2 years in prison, according to the subtitles--could that be because the courts of Japan would consider his crime "justified"? (note--someone snarkily emailed me that it's actually 8 years; I'm not going to watch the movie again to check that fact, but 8 years still doesn't seem like much to me for murder.) The director made some heavyhanded comments about the murderer's sufferings in prison, but I thought the killer got off lightly. Also, I didn't understand the ending of the film--I was hoping it would say something to indicate that the director didn't really support the murder at the beginning, but instead it seemed to me to draw parallels between the victim and the murderer that I didn't think were appropriate.

This movie makes me feel angry every time I think of it. I'm planning to avoid any other films by the same director.