The Eel

Shohei Imamura is one of Japan's master filmmakers and whilst the themes in this film, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, are large - crime and punishment, guilt and redemption, and the possibility of salvation through love - he embeds them in a story of the mundane albeit with a somewhat gory beginning, with Takuro (Koji Yakusho) killing his adulterous wife in flagrante delicto after an anonymous tip-off  After serving eight years for the crime he is released and settles in a small village, opens a barber shop and talks almost to no-one except for the eel he adopted in prison. One day he finds the unconscious body of Keiko, who had attempted suicide and who reminds him of his wife. He befriends her.and he starts to work at his shop but he doesn't let her become close to him.

The pet eel nicely represents a silent companion on the outcast Takuro's lonely odyssey and reflects Imamura's ironic sense of humour although this is ultimately offset by some knockabout comedy before the film resolves on a conventionally sentimental note.

 

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