Chaos

Having tried the two "Ring" films and "Dark Water", I had all but given up on the Japanese horror director, Hideo Nakata. The problem for me is that ("It's a Wonderful Life", "Portrait of Jenny" and the marvellous Japanese "After Life" excepted) I find the paranormal in cinema something of a turn-off. True, these examples are humanist not horror films but even quite respectable ghost stories such as "Blithe Spirit" and "The Ghost and Mrs Muir" don't exactly grab me. I suppose the "Monihara" segment of Satyajit Ray's "Teen Kanya" is the one great piece of supernatural horror cinema I know although one must never forget all those versions of "Hamlet" and Macbeth". If there are monsters out there trying to do unthinkable things to other people then I would prefer them to be human for the simple reason that their very believability makes them ten times more chilling than dreamt up phantoms. Imagine my delight therefore when I discovered an engrossing piece of Grand Guignol by Nakata, his "Chaos" of 1999. From comments and reviews there appear to be several that find the plot complicated to the point of incomprehensibility. I would caution patience as it is a work that needs to be seen several times to be fully understood. When one eventually gets there (for me on a third viewing) the rewards are enormous. Everything fits together in a most diabolically clever way. To give even an inch of the plot away could reduce the pleasure of untangling it. Suffice to say that there are echoes here of "Les Diaboliques" and "Vertigo". By placing "Chaos" on this high level I could not praise it more.

Chaos (1999) was an nice follow up to Ringu. This film's a nice change of pace. One day a rich man and his wife are eating lunch. She decides to step out to get some fresh air, hubby goes outside to meet her and she's gone! Befuddled, Hubby tries to call the police but is contacted by the kidnapper. During this time we're introduced to a divorced handy man. He meets a young lady who offers him some money if she does a job for him. He wants him to kidnap her. What seems like easy money gets this guy into a situation that's way over his head.

This film would have made Hitchcock pleased. It's filled with a lot of plot twists, betrayals and confusion. The direction by Nakata is excellent, he creates a sense of chaos that's extremely effective. If you like movies that spoon feed you information then this is not for you. However if you're a fan of mystery thrillers, you'll eat this one up.

Highly recommended.

Japanese horrormeister Hideo Nakata took a break from his genre of choice to make this twisty, occasionally twisted, and highly effective thriller.

"Chaos" starts off seemingly with a nod to "High and Low" (1963) - an industrialist dealing with a kidnapping - but soon you realize this film worries not about complex moral ambiguities. Instead, "Chaos" has more in common with American film noir from the 1940s and '50s than anything by Kurosawa. Director Nakata and writer Hisashi Saito (adapting a novel by Shogo Utano) also adopt a Hitchcockian feel, borrowing rather generously from "Vertigo" (1958).

"Chaos" owes more to film noir in story than in style. We have the hoodwinked sap, manipulative femme fatale and rich husband, who might harbor his own secret. The performances are uniformly good, especially Miki Nakatani as the object of desire who knows exactly how to play the men in her life and does it to perfection.

This is a well-done, deceptive thriller that relies on a tightly wound plot to keep us guessing. What's gratifying is the characters seem to be on the verge of erupting into violence. There's always that sense of dread; we never know when something or someone will turn deadly. The film is smartly plotted, though there's one glaring plot point - involving the husband's sister - that isn't satisfactorily answered. In fact, I'm not quite sure why it was included.

But "Chaos" remains an intriguing film. To deceive us for as long as possible, because nothing is what it seems in this film, Nakata unravels his mystery in nonlinear fashion, never telling us when flashbacks are about to happen. Although this might confuse some viewers (though it shouldn't), the nonlinear structure isn't merely a gimmick. It works perfectly and, frankly, there's no other way this story could have been told as effectively. "Chaos" trusts its audience to keep up with the twists and turns - and there are many - and how refreshing that is.

Of course, because "Chaos" was a successful Japanese film and remaking newer Asian films is the rage in Hollywood, director Jonathan Glazer is remaking "Chaos," in the footsteps of two other remakes of Nakata films - "Ringu" (1998) and "Dark Water" (2002), which will be at your local multiplex early next year starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly. Although no official announcement has been made, it's perfectly clear Hollywood studios are now utterly devoid of original ideas and stories. Robert De Niro is to star in the "Chaos" remake, and as brilliant an actor as he is (though he has been phoning it in the last few years), I can't see how Glazer could possibly improve on the original.

If you liked "The Lion In Winter," "Blood Simple" and "Memento," I can recommend this one highly. It's an incredibly contorted mystery story full of doubles-crosses and stabbings-in-the-back -- the kind of movie that leaves you so bollixed up that until almost the final frame, you are asking what's happened to whom and why, and if any of it is even real. The kidnapping and killing may or may not have happened, and the reasons gets less and less clear as time goes on. At the very end they pull it all together so you finally get what really happened -- WITHOUT resorting to having a character sit down and explain it to you. It may well be that the viewer understands more of what's going on than any of the characters in the story. My only complaint is that the pace is just a leetle slow for my taste -- it gave me a few hair-tearing moments of "Dear Cod, are they ever going to finally explain what's going on here?" I found it very satisfying, and was not sorry I stayed up late to see the end.

The other reviews are quite right--"Chaos" is a very confusing film that might necessitate a second viewing to understand all the plot twists. This confusion is deliberate and the film is OFTEN out of sequence--further muddying the plot. It also has MANY similarities to great suspense films like Cluzot's "Les Diaboliques" and Hitchcock's "Vertigo".

The film begins with a man getting a phone call from a man announcing that he's just kidnapped his wife--and to get her back he must give him 30,000,000 yen (about $300,000 American). The husband goes to the police and you assume that he'll either get the wife back or the kidnapper will kill her. However, NOTHING happens...no word...nothing. Now there is a TON of stuff that follows--but I don't really want to say more as it will spoil the film. Suffice to say, that what you've seen so far isn't exactly what's really happening...and to truly understand, you'll need to keep watching and keep paying close attention.

I like movies that make me think and offer twists. Although the twists are familiar (hence my mentioning the two movies above), the film is done very well. The only reason I don't score the film higher is that the very last scene in the film really made little sense and was not particularly satisfying. Still, it's well worth your time.