1998 ‘蜘蛛の瞳’ Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Nijima, a white-collar worker, finds the man responsible for his young daughter's murder. He tortures and interrogates the man, who maintains his innocence, before killing and burying him. He returns to his ordinary life feeling listless and hollow, until he encounters a man that introduces himself as an old friend. The man offers Nijima a new job, and subsequently introduces Nijima to his band of hired killers.
Kumo no Hitomi, Les yeux de l'araignée, Eyes Of The Spider, 거미의 눈, Глаза паука, 蜘蛛之瞳, Oczy pająka
Japan
Japan
Apparently this film has either been discarded by Kurosawa himself or it seemed so bad to whoever made the English Wiki page because it doesn't appear anywhere.
Whatever the case, as for this film, it is another joint from the director known for his thoughtful and methodical direction and editing where characters and scenes take a long time to finish. Often this translates into a great feeling of dread that enhances a film, especially his work in the horror genre like "Cure" and "Pulse" or even "Creep". As far as this film is concerned, I couldn't help but feel that in many ways this film almost feels like Kurosawa trying to make a Kitano film. The subject matter, the direction,…
"Charisma came out in ’99, Pulse was 2000, and I think the vague idea I had at the time was that we were really on the cusp of a new century. The idea was to abandon, by destroying everything from the 20th century in order to head into a good, new future. It wasn’t that the apocalyptic vision was negative or despairing, it was positive, a way to get rid of old baggage."
-Kurosawa, in conversation with Reverse Shot
"On the one hand, that destruction can frighten you, but on the other hand, and this may be misinterpreted, but you may feel refreshed afterwards, it may give you a sense of freedom."
-Kurosawa, in an interview for Pulse's bluray release…
Eyes of the Spider is probably a long with its sister film Serpent's Path the most underrated item on Kurosawa's ouvre. A movie about the consequences of violence packed with great images and construction that it at the same time feels very loose and determinist. It has a great feel for character and makes great use of Kurosawa's doom under a non supernatural context.
"emptiness isn't misery. it's the beginning of something new."
this and serpent's path make a lot of sense as direct followups to cure, the above quote about "emptiness" aside — all three are about what the human subconscious may be capable of and what a person becomes when they have face a depressive identity crisis and decide to abandon everything in favor of pure id and senseless murder, in part implicitly motivated by the metaphysical desolation of modern life. but this is a loose and near-plotless dark comedy while the other is a twisty and cold-hearted thriller; i was surprised at first to learn that this was the one written by kiyoshi himself, while serpent was written by hiroshi takahashi (considering how…
The companion piece to Serpent's Path which dispenses with the actual revenge taking early on and instead places focus on the mystifying emptiness that arrives in the aftermath. Show Aikawa stars once again as a man who carries out his warped justice and finds that it hasn't brought him any closer to finding catharsis, something that makes his return to a seemingly ordinary lifestyle feel totally meaningless. He swiftly finds himself swept into a peculiar criminal syndicate and from there we explore the transformation a person can undertake if they've already willingly destroyed their moral compass; he's welcomed violence into his life forever with a single decision, so it only makes sense that inflicting it becomes both his profession and…
The first film in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's two-part filmmaking experiment, Serpent's Path, follows two men during their pursuit of vengeance. Eyes of the Spider is the other side of the same coin – a film that is still in conversation with the idea of revenge but primarily focuses on what life is like after a vengeful act as opposed to life during a vengeful pursuit. Taken as intended, as a companion piece, it works wonderfully. The only thing more impressive than Kurosawa's overwhelming success at approaching the same theme in different ways is that he directed both films in just a month.
Eyes of the Spider sees Show Aikawa as the lead character once more (keeping the name, Nijima, too). He…
The futility of vengeance and the induced madness via loss that makes it necessary. An obsessive-compulsive urge to rid the earth of the scourge that took your child, however when you've finally done the deed, is there anything beneath rock bottom but the Hell that eludes you in life? When the self-induced tunnel vision of a six-year-long obsession dissipates, what's left for you to live for? Enter the New Sin: violence in its many conflicted, murderous machinations. Like revenge, it is cyclical. Like revenge, its threat increases in tandem with the number of people who partake. The two are one in the same in that they're limitless and know no bounds. An old friend says "You add salt and wine…
an absurdist comedy abt yakuza life. but also a somber mood poem abt the aftermath of loss and revenge. how does one continue to exist once one has abandoned one's moral compass? also, jobs really really suck. let's go fishing or rock collecting or something.
'It's not good to cling to the past.'
Elliptical comedy as repressive anarchy and amoral lunacy, brutal revenge opening the gate for a man to keep fueling his grief with violence as an institutional job. The inflection point between a murderer and a man who stamps contracts, the point where conscience collapses and work becomes just instinct and mechanics, a habit as old as rock collecting or fishing. There is no reasoning, only resentment. We are all alone in the end, our past is just abstraction, what may be seen as the remains of our dead daughter is just a plank of wood.
A revenge movie that's over before the opening credits, after which it's protagonist is left with nothing and joins a gang. An empty, skeletal film, a movie about shooting people and fucking around that does not fuck around. Sho Aikawa is Sho Aikawa, he's barely even performing in this movie, just deadpan tics and long silences, but he's perfect, a vacuous lost soul who already abandoned his humanity for a purpose and now having none, occupies space hopelessly. But in emptiness lies possibility, Kurosawa's cosmology creeps in as fossils catch sunlight, a glimmer of a brighter world caught for a split second of a tired, infinitely pessimistic dirge. A rare movie about a broken man and the consequences of violence…
Why go on in the hustle of city life when you can go fishing, rollerskate indoors, and find rare rocks? A foreshadowing to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's experimentation in filmmaking in which many scenes feel like afterthoughts ala Charisma. In Eyes of the Spider, there are small sparks of joy, witty; dry, and sometimes black comedy; his use of space here feels surprisingly comfortable as characters are seen trying to have fun away from their busy lives. The ambiguous ending suggests that people move on after revenge, and that people from the past never go away. Features an awkward but hilarious conversation about polar bears in the North Pole.
Comédia mimética de gêneros absolutamente inspiradora. Poucos no cinema de hoje se dão a algumas liberdades que para o Kiyoshi parecem tão naturais. É curioso como ele começa como um filme de terror e acaba se transformando em um conto moral individualista, totalmente inconsequente e de uma dinâmica sempre imprevisível.
