The Eel

REVIEW
As he commutes home, a workaday Everyman (Yakusho of Shall We Dance?) reads a poison pen letter informing him of his wife's infidelity. Later, he returns home early from a fishing trip to find the allegations are true. He seems quietly surprised when he brutally stabs his wife to death, and hums a gentle tune as he bicycles to the police station to turn himself in. Eight years later, he is released to the care of his parole officer, with the pet eel that had been his best companion during his incarceration. He has a hard time unlearning the habits of his confinement, but his intervention in a young woman's suicide attempt proves the catalyst that enables him to reconnect with life. A compassionate yet unsentimental look at base cruelty and exaulted empathy, containing moments of stunning revelation, exposing human foibles and graces. Director Imamura (Black Rain) has constructed a sagacious consideration of the societies we construct and the raw emotion always lying just beneath the surface. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. (Japanese with English subtitles)