Angel Dust

Innovative, tense and unnerving tale that is also very stylish, with inspired visuals, imaginative use of sound and spectacular editing. It is also a little confusing upon first viewing but it is clear by the end that everything did make sense. An intelligent work that deals with gender/work issues, psychological make up and it's consequences plus the question of dealing with cult 'victims'. In short a lot of ground is covered and it should not be forgotten that this is still a rattling good yarn involving a serial killer who acts each Monday on a Tokyo underground line at 6.00 pm. Setsuko is called in to help police with the case, she having had experience in the field and,, it turns out, worked rather closely with another certain gentleman who we meet a little later. The b/w security camera sequences shot in his clinic are possibly a little long but it is fearsome stuff

Starts off feeling a little bit like a cross between Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs in terms of it being a crime/police procedural mixed with a psychological thriller, but it becomes something different and far harder to describe or compare to anything as it goes along.

It never entirely lost me, thankfully, and it was consistently interesting to see where it would go next. You get the sense wherever it's going it bound to be dark and twisted, but it's never easy to work out how it's going to shock or surprise you as a viewer next.

If there's any complaints I had, I guess I wish it had been a little tighter/shorter, but still pretty good either way.

"Angel Dust" starts with macroscopic shots of nighttime Tokyo. Seemingly endless but ingenious montage, somewhat as if Teshigahara tried to do a megalopolis, drops us gradually to a single subway station, then to a single female figure just as she falls. Precisely the bit of screen occupied by this fall becomes the mouth of a cave. The next cut is to spelunkers, but, if only because I'd just finished the "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" section of Rubin's monograph on Murakami, I felt for a half a second as if the subway victim had slipped down a surreal hole in the platform. There's a hole, too, later, in the b/w dialog of the re-brainwash patient. Since Murakami's also author of the interview tomes abridged here as "Underground", it's necessary to note this film's dated 1994. The final Aum incident hit March 1995. Even if you've seen "Angel Dust," it might pay to watch just after a reading of "Underground." Director Sogo Ishii at a PFA appearance a year or two ago expressed some embarrassment over his film's prescience. Mt. Fuji appears three or four times in the film, filling nearly the whole screen like a national marker, a reminder. I don't pretend to know of what, but the final time, nearly the film's last shot, Fuji's an ominously dark pre-dawn silhouette.

A little after that first killing, much of the city now aware of the subway serial killer, one of a couple of wise-guy salary men (or maybe they're plainclothesmen, doesn't matter) asks the other, "If you were the killer, who here would you pick?" "Her!" The camera zooms to his choice. Cut to a news sheet photo of the same face. He picked the next victim! What were the odds? But he's nobody, not even a red herring, just a dope. Here the film crosses Stanislaw Lem's "The Investigation." Was there really something about the victim? Or did ninety-nine other such dopes, elsewhere in the subway system guess wrongly? Still later, our protagonist, Setsuko, picks a subsequent victim and, in a scene echoed by the concert night murder in "...Lily Chou Chou ," pursues her through throngs heading toward a domed entertainment venue. Did Setsuko really psych the killer, or did the killer simply comply this time with her choice? Setsuko's ex, Aku: "There's not always a single answer. Some people look only for a unique answer." Again, this is Lem territory.

Setsuko is an odd, very careful concoction: bobbed hair, little suits always buttoned, nearly always a wide-eyed straight ahead gaze. I tried to catch her blinking. No luck. If you think you recognize her new-age-y husband, he's both the funnily wise friend from "Love Letter" and the self-defeatingly compliant husband from "Undo." Angel Dust's music is perfect, perfectly synched, percussive, modern, vaguely traditional.

Another touchpoint? "Pygmalion," any version. Setsuko is Liza. Her Higgins is an enigma. I don't know whether he's evil. Ishii also directed "The Crazy Family," which could be point three in a four point progression beginning with whichever Ozu you choose, proceeding to "The Family Game,"and ending, at least for the moment, with "Visitor Q."

"Angel Dust" is about a woman who is seeking a killer. The killer strikes every Monday night at 6:00 pm. The killer targets young women, killing them with a lethal injection in a public place. The woman seeking the killer is a brilliant psychologist who allows the killer's traits to enter her mind and as she begins to think like him, she can use this to trap him. It's a classic set-up and one that's been done before.

In "Angel Dust" it's done with a flair not felt in the cinema for a long time. With careful attention to how imagery can shape the psychological thriller, (the film looks as if it were shot in black and white in the rain and then given to a child to color vibrantly with a 64-pack of crayolas) the film has a mood that is unshakeable. The film is not merely disturbing, but eerie. It's aura is not really reminiscent of too many American films - though some of the themes, such as brain washing ("The Manchurian Candidate") and psychologist getting to close to a killer ("Manhunter") feel familiar - but are done in a deeply original fashion. Watching the film is no easy task either. It's brutally methodical, leading the viewer on an excessive mind game, trying to figure out who's lying to who and who the killer is becomes nearly painful - keep some aspirin handy. The film's real trick is that it's story is ambiguous and has a wifty editing style. The movie can move as quickly as an action picture and then stop, on a dime, to examine something for up to 15 minutes - very succinctly, very carefully and very, very cinematically.

Pulling the threads together reveals that there's a bitter purpose to everything in the film's world. It's creepy and heavy as Stoudt, but none of the negative things I've hinted at are flaws in any way. All are there for a reason. This is one of the best crime films I've ever seen. It's absolutely stunning.

If you've come across the VHS of Angel Dust in your local rental store, you've probably seen the promo material refer to it as "The Japanese Silence of the Lambs." It's really not, however. Yes, the two films share a basic plot: an attractive female detective/ psychologist tracks a serial killer while tapping into the talents of a manipulative mentor type to help get into the killer's mind in order to catch him. But the similarities pretty much end there. There are elements of a whodunit and we get just enough police procedural to keep us on track, but those expecting a big-star Hollywood type production like Silence of the Lambs, or a trendy, graphic thriller like Tell Me Something will probably be disappointed.

However, if you enjoy the psychological aspects of a hunt for a serial killer; think that a secluded brainwashing clinic can be a creepy setting; and appreciate mood, atmosphere, and symbolism over jump scenes and gore, then I suggest that you seek out this little-known film.

Every Monday at 6:00 PM a 20-something girl drops dead right in the middle of the crowded Tokyo subway. The killer's predictability is more than offset by his elusiveness. Meanwhile, we are introduced to our detective, Setsuko Suma. Described as an "analyst on abnormal criminal personalities," she seems to be a cross between a psychic and a empath and is driven to get into the mind of the killer in order to stop him. However, Suma is no confident and strong Clarice Starling. In fact, she is barely hanging on to her sanity, and we get the feeling that the efforts of the investigation just might tip her over the edge, if not kill her. Suma has frequent nightmares and fugue states. In these she finds herself descending into a cave (her nightmares? her memories? a trap from which there is no escape?). The symbolism is effective.

To complicate matters, her investigation leads her to a former mentor and lover (Rei Aku), a mysterious renegade psychologist who has set up a "reverse brainwashing" clinic known as a "Re-freezing Psychorium." We aren't quite sure if the mind games he draws Suma into serve the purpose of helping her in her quest, or something more diabolical. In any event he is always several steps ahead of her and she finds herself psychologically and emotionally at his mercy once he gets into her head.

Something that impressed me greatly about Angel Dust was the visual style and the director's stylistic touches. The look of the film is grainy and washed out. The Tokyo of Angel Dust is bleak and full of urban decay that hangs like an oppressive weight over everything. The color palette tends toward sepia and a pale industrial green that will have you thinking about basement cafeterias, hospital corridors, and flickering fluorescent lighting.

We are treated to some interesting visuals, and I firmly believe the sound editor must be a genius. (I can hear you saying it now--"Oh great...he's going off on the sound editing, that's like telling me the sister has a great personality"). No, no, really. It's very effective, including the use of an atonal synthesizer that really complements the production design.

In sum, well worth the effort to seek out if you are in the mood for something different from the typical Hollywood fare.