Made with a care and obvious intelligence that's way above the worth of its material, "Hysteric" is "Natural Born Trash," Japanese existential style. Tale of a female student teacher lured into a senseless robbery and murder by a short-fused, nihilistic drifter leaves a so-what aftertaste, signaling fest exposure at best. It's several notches below director Takahisa Zeze's earlier "Kokkuri," which played Venice in '97.
Made with a care and obvious intelligence that’s way above the worth of its material, “Hysteric” is “Natural Born Trash,” Japanese existential style. Tale of a female student teacher lured into a senseless robbery and murder by a short-fused, nihilistic drifter leaves a so-what aftertaste, signaling fest exposure at best. It’s several notches below director Takahisa Zeze’s earlier “Kokkuri,” which played Venice in ’97.
Long takes show the grisly humiliation and murder of a neighbor by a couple, Tomo (Koji Chihara) and Mami (Hijiri Kojima), who are seemingly locked in a death-wish relationship. Pic then flashes back from fall ’94 to summer ’93 to show their first meeting, and thereon swings back and forth between the two time frames, with a coda in 2000 in which Tomo suddenly reappears to disrupt Mami’s settled life with a widowed restaurateur. Kojima’s perf is largely introverted and passive, offering few clues to Mami’s psychology, and Chihara’s turn as the volatile, abusive Tomo is similarly constrained by the taciturn script. Technically, film is modest but pro.
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