Furîzu mî

A thoroughly disturbing film, where the seemingly normality of a working woman's life is blown apart by the arrival of a man from her past. I liked the changes of direction that were made in the story. The beginning shows a perfectly normal group of workers, in a situation that seems perfectly plausible, indeed the acting here is so relaxed and natural. However, with the arrival of a man comes the first turn, and we see the dark secret that has been kept for so long, and this is where the disturbing feelings arrive with a violent crash. As the other members of a yakuza gang rape arrive, five years after the incident, they bring ever escalating levels of violence to the woman's life, and as the ties to her new normal life begin to break away, so do her ties to sanity. There comes the next turn, and her shocking actions. However, being shocking and disturbing does not a good film make, and I felt that it was this turn in direction that started a downward trip for the movie. Having started with a story that felt so real and human, this turn pulled in a totally different direction building a huge gulf between story and my beliefs and sympathies. I felt myself wishing that the story had remained in the vein of the first half, I am sure that it would have made a better film overall. Still, it's not a total loss.