The final Nomura film in Bradford’s retrospective was described initially as bringing an element of horror into its crime melodrama. I’m not sure that is an appropriate description (it might have been more appropriate for The Shadow Within). The title ‘Demon‘ certainly suggests horror but I would argue that this is a melodrama featuring ‘extremes’ of cruelty and despair. Certainly there is nothing supernatural. Possibly it could be argued that the behaviour exhibited by some characters is ‘abnormal’ – but then many crimes might be the result of abnormal behaviour. The literal translation of the title is more revealing, suggesting the kind of character we eventually meet as ‘brutal’.
The earlier Nomura films based on Matsumoto stories have referred to various social issues and in this case it is the issue of marital relations and childcare coupled with low income. The central character is a married man, Sokichi (Ogata Ken, also a leading player in Castle of Sand) who fathers three children with a mistress. His own marriage is childless and he works alongside his wife Oume (Iwashita Shima) in a small-scale printing business. When money becomes tight in the failing business he can’t afford to pay for the upkeep of his children. As a consequence, the mistress appears one day, dumps the children (6, 3 and an infant) at the printshop and disappears. Oume is furious and refuses to have anything to do with them.
Sokichi has a complicated problem – what to do with his children when his wife doesn’t want them. I don’t want to reveal what happens (a Region 1 DVD is available) but suffice to say his increasingly desperate attempts to rid himself of the children become more unbearable as the narrative progresses. Sokichi at first seems to care for his children (who love him as their father) but eventually he is driven to actions which deny this. At one point I thought I was going to find it difficult to watch the narrative unfold. I was then quite surprised to find that the last third of the film was gripping and in a strange way it ended as a humanist melodrama. Nomura re-visits the Noto peninsula which featured at the end of Zero no shoten for the climax of the film. Although the police do become involved, like The Shadow Within, The Demon is essentially a family drama. The film won several awards in Japan, including best actor for Ogata and best director. Ogata’s performance is extraordinary, making us feel for a man despite his despicable behaviour. Shima is equally good as a woman who has become almost the equivalent of a wicked witch in a fairy tale. I don’t think we learn whether she is actually infertile or whether she has chosen to remain childless. Certainly she shows no maternal instinct.
Like many of Matsumoto’s stories this appears to be based on a true story. Such stories are all too common in the press and on television news. It’s hard to imagine how a family story like this can be adapted so successfully but Nomura and his scriptwriter (in this case Ide Masato, who worked with Kurosawa on three films) manage the task. The film was screened on a digital format and perhaps lacked the colours of a film print but Kawamata Takashi’s camerawork is up to the same standard as in the earlier films. I didn’t notice the music because I was so engrossed by the story. I’m not sure that this was my favourite film of the five Nomuras, but the more I think about it, the more of an exceptional artistic and commercial achievement it becomes.
The Case for Global Film 