In 1 9 6 4, the police interrogate serial killer and truck driver Iwao, who recollects his life. Born into a Christian Japanese family, Iwao was always rebellious. After he stole an American jeep and was sent to prison, his parents, Shizuo and Kayo, hoped Iwao would calm down after they find him a bride. However, Iwao married Kazuko and got two kids, yet she left him. Kazuko only came back because she lusted after Shizuo, which infuriated Iwao. After two truck drivers picked him up, Iwao stabbed them to death. In order to hide from the police, Iwao presented himself as a professor and was hiding at an inn equipped with prostitutes, run by Haru, who became his mistress. After he killed a lawyer, Iwao strangled both Haru and her mother. After he was hanged, Shizuo and Kazuko, now a couple, throw Iwao's bones from a hill.
Shohei Imamura's magnum opus is a biopic about a serial killer, but at the same time a thorough analysis of a slice of Japanese society, as well: despite a running time of 140 minutes, every single second of "Vengeance is Mine" is engaging, and there is something organic, genuine in the way the storyline unravels. Imamura's fascination with the theme of rebellious outsiders who would rather honestly indulge in their wild passion rather than lead a conformist, bland life seems to form a part of the movie's appeal. Similarly like Fengler's-Fassbinder's "Why Does Mr. R Run Amok?", "Vengeance" also presents the murders of the seemingly normal looking antagonist as sudden and perplexing, defying logic, almost as if there is something that caused Iwao to "snap", so it depicts his life in great depth, hoping to "accidentally" stumble upon some clues. So many details in the story are surprising. For one, Iwao comes from a minority, a Catholic Japanese family, and the Catholic's neurotic relationship with sexuality may explain why he would want to rebel against the authority and simply run away at Haru's inn to have sex with a prostitute all night. However, his murders defy any such explanation. His reasonable rebellion quickly got mixed with unreasonable rebellion, since his five victims are strangers, except for the last two, which is even more shocking.
While hiding from the police at the inn, Iwao seems at times like a really nice guy. Many supporting characters shine and say a lot about local mentality, including Imamura's fascination with the power of erotic sensuality. In one sequence, Iwao's father Shizuo tries to persuade Iwao's wife Kazuko to return to her husband. She agrees—but only because she lusts after Shizuo (!), and not her husband. While in the spa, the naked Shizuo and Kazuko scrub each others back, and sense erotic chemistry. Later, after Iwao is on the run, Shizuo tells Kazuko to find another husband while he will just be "drooling in the sun" of a retirement home. But Kazuko tells him: "I will visit you every day, and lick the drool off your lips until they are clean". Another astounding character is the innkeeper, Haru, who knows Iwao is the wanted killer, but accepts him because she has "experience" due her own mother being a killer (!) who spent 15 years in jail. Haru hires prostitutes at her inn, but they are scared of her mother, so Haru complains: "Now that the girls are gone, the customers are gone as well." Two murders happen off-screen, but Imamura reveals what happened due to stylistic means: in one sequence, Iwao goes to a store and buys 30 small nails. In the next scene, it is revealed why: he goes to the lawyer's apartment, sits, while the door of a closet opens by itself, revealing the killed lawyer inside, so Iwao bolts the doors shut with nails. Imamura paints a large picture of his society, revealing and accepting all these contradictions in it, from suppressed rage unleashed against innocent bystanders up to clumsy situations (during a rainy night, a police officer enters the inn and gives Iwao wanted posters of Iwao to display them, not even paying attention whom he gave it to), delivering an essay about the effects of nihilism applied in life.
Grade:+++
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