Kurosawa’s ‘Cure’,
and the veneer of ordinary
There is something distinctly unsettling about watching Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure", in that it feels like being slowly submerged in a bathtub while a stranger holds your shoulders down. Not violently, but with a gentle, persistent pressure that seems almost considerate.
Made in 1997, when Japan was still reeling from the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks and economic collapse had left a generation at a loss of what to do with the future, "Cure" presents itself initially as a police procedural, but it is much much more than that. Detective Kenichi Takabe investigates a series of murders where different killers carve an 'X' into their victims' throats, each perpetrator caught immediately afterward with no memory of their actions. The culprits aren't connected, except they are, by a drifting amnesiac named Mamiya who hypnotises strangers into carrying out the cold killings.
The film is an absolute triumph.
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It is an example in the perfect alchemy between picture, sound, perfomance and edit. All are equal partners and each do their part in submerging you into the ordinary quiet of a life that teeters on the brink of violence.
Kōji Yakusho's detective Takabe maintains a professional stoicism that occasionally cracks to reveal the psychic toll of caring for his mentally ill wife, a situation that would, in a Hollywood film, be milked for tears like a prized horse, but here is presented with the matter-of-factness of a coroner's report.
Masato Hagiwara's Mamiya, our hypnotist villain, isn't some eloquent Hannibal Lecter but a blank-faced nothing, who manipulates others by reflecting their own emptiness back at them. His repeated question, "Who are you?", is used as his existential weapon. A dagger to the heart of the soon to be murderers.
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The film's horror comes not from jump scares but from the suggestion that the veneer of civilisation is thinner than clingfilm. It proposes that the only thing preventing us from slitting each other's throats is not our own fortified moral compasses but but the absence of someone suggesting we do so.
The cinematography is aggressive in it’s restraint, static shots held until they become oppressive. Just the way I like em.
"Cure" is a hypnotic experience in itself. A slow, deliberate disassembly of the modern condition that leaves you questioning whether you've been hypnotised by the end of the film.
You may find, days later, that you're still carrying it around like a stone in your pocket, occasionally taking it out to examine its cold, hard edges.
Made in 1997, when Japan was still reeling from the Aum Shinrikyo sarin attacks and economic collapse had left a generation at a loss of what to do with the future, "Cure" presents itself initially as a police procedural, but it is much much more than that. Detective Kenichi Takabe investigates a series of murders where different killers carve an 'X' into their victims' throats, each perpetrator caught immediately afterward with no memory of their actions. The culprits aren't connected, except they are, by a drifting amnesiac named Mamiya who hypnotises strangers into carrying out the cold killings.
The film is an absolute triumph.
It is an example in the perfect alchemy between picture, sound, perfomance and edit. All are equal partners and each do their part in submerging you into the ordinary quiet of a life that teeters on the brink of violence.
Kōji Yakusho's detective Takabe maintains a professional stoicism that occasionally cracks to reveal the psychic toll of caring for his mentally ill wife, a situation that would, in a Hollywood film, be milked for tears like a prized horse, but here is presented with the matter-of-factness of a coroner's report.
Masato Hagiwara's Mamiya, our hypnotist villain, isn't some eloquent Hannibal Lecter but a blank-faced nothing, who manipulates others by reflecting their own emptiness back at them. His repeated question, "Who are you?", is used as his existential weapon. A dagger to the heart of the soon to be murderers.
The film's horror comes not from jump scares but from the suggestion that the veneer of civilisation is thinner than clingfilm. It proposes that the only thing preventing us from slitting each other's throats is not our own fortified moral compasses but but the absence of someone suggesting we do so.
The cinematography is aggressive in it’s restraint, static shots held until they become oppressive. Just the way I like em.
"Cure" is a hypnotic experience in itself. A slow, deliberate disassembly of the modern condition that leaves you questioning whether you've been hypnotised by the end of the film.
You may find, days later, that you're still carrying it around like a stone in your pocket, occasionally taking it out to examine its cold, hard edges.
24 April 2025