映画（窒息）「Eiga (Chissoku)」
Release Date: November 11th, 2023
Duration: 108 mins.
Director: Gen Nagao
Writer: Gen Nagao (Screenplay),
Starring: Misa Wada, Daiki Hiba, Takashi Nishina, Yuri Tajima, Minori Terada, Hiroshi Niki,
Website Twitter: @eiga_choke JFDB
Science-fiction films from the Japanese indie scene are rare these days. Still rarer are ones where the lead character is a cavewoman but that’s the set-up to Gen Nagao’s highly original tale, one that comes out of leftfield in content and execution but displays his confident control of tone and the ability for him to get a lot out of actors to make something memorable.
Motion Picture: Choke is a black-and-white film set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has regressed to a primitive state and people communicate without language.
We follow a lone woman (Misa Wada) who lives in the concrete ruins of an abandoned and vine-shrouded building in the mountains where one of the sides of the building is exposed to all elements. Her days are spent foraging for food and also for goods to trade with an itinerant merchant (Minori Terada), her evenings spent looking out over the mountain range, her nights spent sleeping, sometimes experiencing troubling visions.
A utopian ideal reigns supreme where the woman collects nuts and, despite almost poisoning herself to death by trying out strange mushrooms (foreshadowing), she makes meals and music through experiment and with merriment. She sets traps for rabbits and collects rainwater to drink by using old plastic barrels which she transfers to a gourd she swigs from leisurely. It is hard not to laugh along with her during these mirthful moments and dispatches rabbits with a ruthlessness that would be shocking if the rabbits didn’t look like stuffed toys.
While there may be an absence of people, in this domain, the woman reigns and roams free. Then…
… men arrive in her territory, first mountain bandits and their white-robed leader (Takashi Nishina) and then a young wanderer (Daiki Hiba) whom she takes in. With men, pleasure, progress, and terror taint the woman’s Eden and yet, the woman persists and resists.
This is a story without a specific place and without dialogue to situate us. What transpires is something of a universal experience of conflict and the problems of living with others and it encompasses patriarchy, power struggles, war, and torture. Within these events we see how innocence can be corrupted and spoil a natural environment and how the absence of people, even with all the problems they bring, can be just as painful so while the story seems simple, it has an added philosophical dimension that gives depth organically and gives the film a poignancy after the fun. However, at its base level is a woman trying to survive in the wilderness and with warriors.
The conflict, when it comes, is spirited, exciting, and organic. Gen Nagao, whose previous output seems to be dramas, genuinely surprises with the energy and inventiveness of his shooting style as he utilises a wide range of visual tools to convey the action.
Considering the indie budget, he would have been forgiven for a focus on mid-shots and close-ups but he uses split screen and lots of dolly shots, sudden push-ins, and handheld shots to convey cavemen fighting. His fight choreography also makes great use of the ruins, found in the hills of Gifu Prefecture, that the woman makes her home as action takes place on different floors and the exposed side gives a better view and allows for cat-and-mouse games. Meanwhile, all of the actions we saw her perform in the opening, with regards to food collection and tool use, get called back on in surprising ways. I was genuinely left dazzled that he approached his material with an energy that gives the directorial output of Keisuke Sonomura (Hydra) a run for its money and this feeling is solidified because of Nagao’s distinct visual aesthetic and the setting.
The black and white look lends the film a nice look that adds a rich end-of-the-world atmosphere and seeing it on a big screen would be stirring. It really pops when it comes to the woman’s nightmare image of a black figure lurking in her derelict home, something horrific like the weird interdimensional being from Twin Peaks: The Return. The film repeatedly cuts back to sequences of this figure stretching itself menacingly towards her prone body, the full import of which is not really revealed until after she meets men. Even then, its presence and meaning are open to interpretation but leaves a lot of memorable menace that leaves a note of terror on the screen and should leave such a feeling in a viewer’s gut.
What makes it so disturbing, beyond the scary vision of a world being violently jolted, is the fact that Misa Wada gives a brilliant performance that invests us in the story. For long stretches, this is almost a one-woman show as Misa Wada, a veteran character actor who came to prominence in the dark drama Siblings of the Cape (2018), essays her character with such vibrancy that all eyes are drawn to her and every big grin over a pretty feather found and howl of terror over a dangerous event plucks the right heart strings. She is simply fun and sympathetic to watch – when she adds to the musical score via environmental effects such as drumming along to the rain she catches in a plastic container, it is hard not to smile with delight. The other cast members also gamely essay characters with the sort of theatrical acting that zeroes in on human emotions in their purest form but just when you think you have a handle on what is happening, the film chokes off the narrative in an unexpected way so that is just as surprising as the narrative that preceded it and more disturbing because of how attached we become to the woman.
Ultimately, you come to admire the woman and the gall of Gen Nagao and his cast to take these creative risks to make a super atmospheric film with distinct and fun performances. Motion Picture: Choke is completely unlike other indie films you often see.
Motion Picture: Choke plays at Japan Cuts on July 12th. Japan Cuts runs from July 10th—21st, 2024 and features a wealth of classics, documentaries and fiction features and shorts. Here’s something of a preview of the titles playing. Check back here for coverage.