Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on October 02, 2007 at 13:39:04

A 2002 Japanese erotic thriller directed by Shinya Tsukamoto, whose previous work is unknown to me. A middle aged woman, who works at a crisis phone center talking to people to prevent them from killing themselves. One day, one of her callers sends her a cell phone, and erotic photographs of her by herself, in an envelope referencing her husband. She, being the reserved type, with a reserved husband, agrees to submit to this stranger's verbal commands in exchange for him giving her the negatives.

She begins as a reluctant victim, then morphes into a willing participant follwing his erotic instructions. I must say that when she first follows his instructions, it was rather pathetic. Towards the end of the film, when she is more skilled, I found the scenes very erotic, before any clothes came off. Our director has the talent to titillate.

It is filmed in a bluish green palette, during the rainy season, which the director uses to great effect. The camera style reminds me of Christopher Nolan's film "Following." The lack of color and the camera style help to create a claustrophobic atmosphere, and the smartly written dialog keeps us engrossed into the drama as we wait to learn about this mysterious man, and our heroine's husband finally being brought into the action.

But I felt the last act was not true to the film. I will not write more other than I felt it to be what I would call a "Hollywood" ending. Interestingly, the director comments that he was tempted to make the stalker a Hollywood type of stalker - invading her room rather than being anonymous over a cell phone. It seems he could not avoid the need to tack on a pedestrian ending onto a well crafted erotic thriller.

It is not a brilliant film, and not, I surmise, entirely original, and with a subpar ending, but if you are in the mood for a stylish erotic thriller, then this should fit the bill.