The character setting of the film is very simple, and there are only three main characters. They are wife Rinko Tatsumi played by Asuka Kurosawa, husband Shigehiko played by Yuji Kohtari and photographer Iguchi played by director Shinya Tsukamoto. The wife and husband are typical Japanese office workers. His wife, Rinko, works in the psychological counseling room of a hospital, while her husband is a workaholic with cleanliness. Their lives seem to be plain, but in fact there are hidden dangers. One day, Rinko received an anonymous letter with "Your Husband's Secret" written on the envelope, but when she curiously opened the envelope, she was surprised to find that it contained all pictures of herself masturbating. Her life is being watched! Subsequently, Rinko began to receive calls from a strange man who claimed to have gotten Rinko's help to get out of the predicament of trying to commit suicide. He's not extorting money from Rinko, his only request is for Rinko to do what she wants. The odd request made Rinko "call the police." But in the end, Rinko gave up. The mysterious man tells Rinko to take off her panties, put on a very short miniskirt, and go to the adult store to buy the largest female masturbator, and then instruct her step by step through the city. It would be a big mistake to press the "stop" button after seeing this, and think that the film is a perverted film that takes a peek into the lives of women for fun. In fact, the photographer Iguchi, a cancer patient, judged the heroine Rinko from his knowledge of cancer Like him, Tatsumi has cancer. The basis of Rinko and Shigehiko's indifferent and numb relationship is their inability to express and communicate desires, yet the instinct of the body shakes them with a powerful force that becomes the calling of life. Cinematographer Iguchi uses her own methods to make Rinko find herself again and regain her confidence in life, and the discord between her and her husband is resolved at the end of the film, finally forcing them to rediscover and build their marriage. It can be said that the film starts from a perverted start and ends with a touching ending. In this 77-minute film, Tsukamoto Shin also used a lot of erotic images to express Rinko's gradually recovering sexual desire and physical pleasure, but he was by no means to provide sensual pleasure and stimulation to the audience. What they present is actually the psychological loneliness and even the mutated state of mind of the urbanites (in my personal opinion, it refers more to the urbanites of the Japanese country). Shinya Tsukamoto, through his own role as the photographer, turns the audience's attention from the protagonists' sexual thirst to their spiritual needs. He didn't deliberately render pornography and perversion, but he used these elements to string together the whole film. This is the genius of the film.
"The Snake of June", like other works by Tsukamoto Shinya, still integrates screenwriting, directing, production, acting, photography and editing. It is a typical author's film with a very stylized brand. The film is called "Snake of June", which not only sets the background of the story in a rainy season, from the dialogue of the film, it can be judged that June is the rainy season in Japan. Therefore, an important influence symbol in the film - rain, runs through the whole film from beginning to end. In addition, the cover of the sewer and the snail also appear repeatedly in the film. These symbols have strong symbolic meanings, implying the monotony, dullness and lack of change of the middle-class life in Japan in a cold and alienated society. Director Shin Tsukamoto may also have deliberately used a blue filter when shooting, and the entire film is immersed in a blue gloom. Except for blue, there is no other color in sight. This setting makes the grim style of the whole film unmistakable at a glance.
Ishikawa Tadashi is still responsible for the music of the film. As always, the strong metal rhythm and a large number of slow strings are added to create a tense and weird atmosphere for the film. In a movie that wins by plot and atmosphere, the quality of the music is directly related to the overall effect of the movie. Tadashi Ishikawa has undoubtedly accomplished this task satisfactorily.
"The Snake of June" continues Shinya Tsukamoto's consistent sexuality and violence in terms of subject matter, and it can be said that there is not much breakthrough. Fortunately, he can find different carriers to interpret his consistent themes every time, which is one reason why his films are still worth looking forward to. When the film was shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2002, there was a long queue at the entrance of the theater, so everyone could still favor his film.
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