The Third Murder - Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda


Not content with producing a recent string of deceptively perceptive dramas that any director would be envious of, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda has changed gear for his latest picture. The Third Murder (a seemingly innocuous but very deliberate title) may technically be a murder mystery but in Kore-eda’s hands, it plays as a much more unconventional take on that familiar genre: a story in which the neatly tied loose ends are thoroughly unravelled.

Factory worker Misumi follows his boss down to the riverbank one evening, a hammer in hand. Once the violent blows have been dealt and the body burned, Misumi is promptly arrested and confesses to the murder. Having already served time in prison for a double murder some years ago, he’s almost certain to receive the death penalty. His defence attorney Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) begins searching for any detail or technicality that might spare his client from his fate, but soon begins to question Misumi’s apparently certain guilt.




It helps to have an actor as charismatic as Kôji Yakusho to play the disarmingly polite murderer. He remains compliant and unperturbed, even as his story changes frequently and seemingly without purpose. Yakusho’s performance is captivating and yet reveals no indication of Misumi’s exact nature, which helps to maintain the mystery through the film.

All of this leaves Shigemori searching for the fundamental basis of the case from which to build a defence. “You don’t need understanding or empathy to defend a client”, he imparts confidently to his junior lawyer early in the story but Shigemori is soon left with no choice but to dig into Misumi’s history, which indirectly overlaps with his own. Fukuyama (star of Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son) impresses as the increasingly flustered Shigemori; as the story progresses, his confidence weakens and the things he takes for granted become much more malleable.


It’s almost as if Shigemori is speaking to a different person each time he visits Misumi in prison: maybe Misumi’s a twin or triplet, or perhaps he has a split personality disorder? Kore-eda isn’t interested in this kind of reveal or parlour trick. Instead he’s concerned with a much more pertinent issue: the fallibility of the systems in place to achieve justice and the immutable nature of the punishments that can be handed down, and the immense disparity between those two things. It’s a worthy thesis but not the most effectively laid out. Kore-eda aims to recreate the uncertainty that his characters experience for his audience but it often ends up being a little too obtuse. I have enough faith in Kore-eda as a filmmaker to know that this story was leading somewhere interesting, but I felt that Kore-eda didn’t quite guide me there.


The drama and tension is most palpable in the scenes between Misumi and Shigemori. Even as Shigemori leans closer and peers harder through the glass at Misumi, he remains no closer to understanding the man on the other side of the divide. It’s elsewhere that the film lacks a rhythm to help propel the story forward. Consider the difference between a police case report and a crime novel: The Third Murder is too much like the former and would benefit greatly from a sprinkling of flair from the latter.

This latest film is an ambitious but not wholly successful new venture for Kore-eda, whose willingness to look for new challenges is worthy of note. However, whereas his previous work has drifted gracefully from one scene to the next, The Third Murder shuffles determinedly towards its thought-provoking conclusion.





THE THIRD MURDER is in UK cinemas from Friday 23rd March 2018.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sunshine - Dir. Danny Boyle

Certain Women - Dir. Kelly Reichardt

John Wick - Dir. Chad Stahleski & David Leitch