遠吠え 「Toboe」
Release Date: April 16th, 2022
Duration: 86 mins.
Director: Sheikh M Haris
Writer: Sheikh M Haris (Screenplay),
Starring: Ichiro Hashimoto, Yukino Takahashi, Ryoma Ikegami, Sanae Kotani, Takahiro Ono,
There is no rule stating that a film has to have a hero who is successful or likeable. There doesn’t even have to be a hero. Such is the case with Howling, a neo-noir by writer/director Sheikh M Haris where the story’s sad-sack “hero” operates with self-aggrandising sophistry that ultimately undermines his quest to be a leading man.
Our so-called hero is Ryuji (Ichiro Hashimoto), a 40-year-old who has no woman, no stable job, and no intention of living in reality as witnessed when the film opens and he is shown sexually harassing one of the part-timers who works with him at a karaoke parlour. He claims he is “rescuing” her from another colleague but as the woman argues back, Ryuji has stalked her for quite a while. When he explains to a much younger job interviewer a couple of scenes down the line that his firing was all about appearances, he glosses over the reality.
Far from being a grand fantasist in the Billy Liar mould, Ryuji’s behaviour in these early scenes is illustrative of a seedy everyday self-deceptive thinking that gets him through life as he avoid dealing with his failings and cowardice. With little thought for others or room for self-reflection, he continues to fool himself. This is a weakness that two femme fatales prey upon.
Their entries into the story are innocuous enough. First comes an invitation to a junior high school reunion which leads to Ryuji meeting with Chisato (Sanae Kotani), his first love who he obsesses over. Next is a coffee shop meetup with Akane (Yukino Takahashi), a beautiful university student he met on a dating app. Far from being the fast dames that Dashiell Hammett describes in his hard-boiled detective novels, Haris re-imagines their archetype as everyday women in desperate circumstances. Chisato’s husband and Akane’s father are physically abuse and their desperation is such, they turn to Ryuji. All it takes to put him on a path to killing their abusers is 10 million yen and a gun.
After a strong start, you can see his line of thinking – if society won’t give him an honest chance to change his life, crime will and he will get two beautiful women in the process. His fantasist tendencies emerge in a few scenes where we see him indulging in prancing around with the gun pretending to kill people with glee but soon bathos strikes as his cowardice curtails his convictions and he constantly cancels the killings at climactic moments. He ain’t no Travis Bickle, shall we say.
Thus, the film turns into a bleakly farcical character study as the main protagonist’s ego allows himself to be caught in a Coen-esque comedy of errors by women who see him as a tool for escape. A certain sense of schadenfreude strikes at seeing Ryuji’s hero fantasies stripped away to reveal his cowardly core as, despite being given the tools and two truly reprehensible targets, his lack of conviction leads to failure. Dialogue with Chisato reveals that this has been a lifelong occurrence and so, beyond uncomfortable laughter, the film generates some tension as it seems that if Ryuji is to break the cycle, it has to happen at an extreme moment of violence. It does. While the audience will be primed for something climactic, Howling manages to surprise in an entirely ironic way that will leave viewer’s jaws on the floor.
Ensuring that we stay invested in Ryuji’s character is Ichiro Hashimoto who establishes a level of pathos by showing a meeker, more pitiable side to his character beyond the more comedic and breathtakingly reckless action-star wannabe and downright seedy loser he turns out to be.
Making the film more than a malevolent pity party devoted to a maladjusted male are the two women in the story who are as complex as Ryuji and act as a counterweight to his delusions. Both Yukino Takahashi and Sanae Kotani deliver complex roles that go beyond victim. Flawed, struggling, but showing agency by making moves when needed, the actors change gears with skill as their character arcs lead them from looking for a hero, as evidenced by their naturalistic banter about manga heroes and super powers, to delicious dramatic moments of them manipulating the leading man, to taking matters into their own hands in a frenzy as Ryuji shows signs of failure. Thus, the film gives a certain life to the phrase, “men believe in fantasy, women in action.”
Haris captures the darkness of this story by presenting a city swathed in shadows. Good framing and editing locate us in environments dominated by concrete overpasses and their incessant traffic, to bleak windswept riverside spots and the high-rise apartment tower where the rooms act as chambers where macabre and traumatic secrets are exposed.
Ultimately, this is a unique neo-noir with characters that prove engaging due to their flaws as they act out a story populated by realistic waifs and strays of Japanese society.
Howling was shown at the Osaka Asian Film Festival on March 13 and 17.