GREATFUL DEAD (2013)

 

Directed By: Eiji Uchida Written By: Eiji Uchida and Etsuo Hiratani Cinematography: Shin’Ya Kimura

Cast: Kumi Takiuchi, Takashi Sasano 

Nami is a young woman with numerous hangups sprouting from a dysfunctional childhood. She inherits a small fortune that allows her to pursue various interests, many of which are abnormal.

This film is definitely the work of a singular vision of director Eiji Uchida 

This is a strange character piece about a girl so encased by the loneliness that she takes to watching people not ordinary people but people who are on the outs of society and seem to have been broken or rail against the Norm.

She ends up Also giving them chances at life. As her main subject not only seeks to revitalize his life before she injects herself into it but also gives him something to love when she attacks him and tries to kill him for making a connection. She also brings him back to his war days as just trying to survive.

The film offers a few surprises such as their past together and some unsettling scenes of her trying to sexually assault him.

Though the film also seems to have something to say about religion how for some it is a savior and for others it is a tool of resentment 

This film is definitely a conversation starter if you make it through as it is at times too intense for some and maybe a little too slow for others 

There seems to be a fetishism in effect, you just keep waiting for it to surface but alas it never quite does fully. Though it does go there more than his later film LOVE AND OTHER CULTS, which may compare to the movie LOVE EXPOSURE, Which is itself a love story built around fetishes.

Until then the film stays subdued but creepy. You wish we could learn more about some characters on the sidelines. As the film is definitely a character study.

Like the lead female character likes to play games and put everything in its place.

Grade: C+