Watched the Criterion release of this recently, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Deeply unsettling, but at the same time intensely watchable--reading this just made me want to put the disc back on. (I need to finished Creepy first, a more recent Kurosawa movie along a similar vein. And I have a gorgeous edition of Pulse I've been waiting to revisit. Going full existential despair this winter, apparently!)
I haven't seen this in quite some time, and while I don't recall the twists and turns of the plot an interview Kurosawa gave about the film always stuck with me. He said "Cure" was an exploration of the Western concept of "identity". By his telling this is a radical concept in the East where its assumed no one has "one identity" but we are different things in different contexts. So the same person at home can act totally different at their job, etc... Within the context of the film, people can become murderers with just a bit of suggestion.
It's why I love dipping into foreign films and culture. It can help show you what's nature vs nurture and hold a magnifying glass up to our conceptions of reality.
Great discussion of a great film 😊 I do have one possible correction, though -- if my memory serves, the killers don’t actually have amnesia (though the drifter and the protagonist’s wife do). Instead, each killer says something to the effect of “it seemed like the natural thing to do at the time.” Which I
Great movie. Came back to it last election season, when the accumulation of news reports, attack ads and circular arguments felt like Mamiya coaxing our worst natures to the surface. Chilling stuff.
I only caught up with this last year. I did not make the chronological link between this and the sarin gas attacks, an observation once made, seems really obvious in retrospect.
A movie I'm going to have to watch again for sure. Pulse did a lot more for me but frankly, it hits different when you're locked up in quarantine and despairing over loneliness.
I also just need to take the space to say there's an Indian rip-off of it, though I can't remember what it's called. i just remember my grandparents having it on once and strongly remembering the detail of Xs on the walls and the cuts on people's necks.
Watched the Criterion release of this recently, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Deeply unsettling, but at the same time intensely watchable--reading this just made me want to put the disc back on. (I need to finished Creepy first, a more recent Kurosawa movie along a similar vein. And I have a gorgeous edition of Pulse I've been waiting to revisit. Going full existential despair this winter, apparently!)
I haven't seen this in quite some time, and while I don't recall the twists and turns of the plot an interview Kurosawa gave about the film always stuck with me. He said "Cure" was an exploration of the Western concept of "identity". By his telling this is a radical concept in the East where its assumed no one has "one identity" but we are different things in different contexts. So the same person at home can act totally different at their job, etc... Within the context of the film, people can become murderers with just a bit of suggestion.
It's why I love dipping into foreign films and culture. It can help show you what's nature vs nurture and hold a magnifying glass up to our conceptions of reality.
Great discussion of a great film 😊 I do have one possible correction, though -- if my memory serves, the killers don’t actually have amnesia (though the drifter and the protagonist’s wife do). Instead, each killer says something to the effect of “it seemed like the natural thing to do at the time.” Which I
Great movie. Came back to it last election season, when the accumulation of news reports, attack ads and circular arguments felt like Mamiya coaxing our worst natures to the surface. Chilling stuff.
Scott, this headline made me think that Cure was real and the guy from Cure was coming to find me. Please don’t scare me like this again.
I only caught up with this last year. I did not make the chronological link between this and the sarin gas attacks, an observation once made, seems really obvious in retrospect.
A movie I'm going to have to watch again for sure. Pulse did a lot more for me but frankly, it hits different when you're locked up in quarantine and despairing over loneliness.
I also just need to take the space to say there's an Indian rip-off of it, though I can't remember what it's called. i just remember my grandparents having it on once and strongly remembering the detail of Xs on the walls and the cuts on people's necks.