A Snake of June (2002)

A woman is being stalked by a stranger. His stalking turns to blackmail when he sends her copies of photos of her in an embarrassing position. Now he controls her and she has to do anything he says. Anything.

Director:

Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Writer:

Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Stars:

Asuka Kurosawa, Yûji Kôtari, Shin'ya Tsukamoto

5 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Asuka Kurosawa	...	Rinko Tatsumi
Yûji Kôtari	...	Shigehiko (as Yuji Koutari)
Shin'ya Tsukamoto	...	Iguchi
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yukino Asai
Hira Dezu
Kôichi Fujita
Takehiro Fukuhara
Tomoya Fukumoto
Mansaku Fuwa
Teruko Hanahara
Kiyoto Harada
Daisuke Hatori
Noboru Inoue
Tarô Iwate
Shinji Kai

Storyline

Rinku is a suicide-prevention counselor, living with her husband Shigehiko. He's older than she, scrubbing things constantly, sexually indifferent. They sleep apart. During Tokyo's rainy season, Iguchi, a photographer Rinku has counseled by phone, sends her pictures he has taken through her skylight: she's wearing a short skirt, masturbating. He offers her the negatives if she'll follow his instructions. She's humiliated and agrees. He tells her he's only giving her license to express her inner desires. He sends her into the night to walk on the wild side. Then, she asks a favor of him, and soon her husband receives phone calls and photographs. Where will this triangle lead?

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Plot Keywords:

miniskirt | woman wears eyeglasses | cancer | blackmail | photograph | 

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Taglines:

Issho ni, jigoku ni ikimashô

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Genres:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sexuality, nudity and some violence

User Reviews

Kaleidoskopic view

This reminds me of my discovery with Tetsuo, ten years ago, of a cinema out there. Tetsuo for me at the time was like listening for the first time to bands like Throbbing Gristle or SPK. The term 'industrial' wasn't just a commercial label, it communicated something fundamental of the fabric it was made of, not of style but of the sound itself (in Tetsuo's case, the image). It was enough to simply experience it, interpretations seemed superfluous.

Snake of June is a similar experience for the body, in the sense that the ideas explored pale in comparison to the exploration itself. Whatever it's a portrait of, of sexual or personal liberation from the self, it's the portrait that matters to me.

The grimy aesthetic pulsing with grain and noise, the fluid camera exploring dark recesses of an urban dystopia of constant downpour, the sudden bursts of fetishized sex, all these orient and provide contrast and context to what is explored. It's not enough to see these personal demons overcomed by the female protagonist, the boundaries of mundane existence broken apart, it counts to experience how they reflect.

A view of the mind is permitted here through a camera obscura, dancing on the walls of the mind we see demented projections. The emerging view is not clear, but like the best of surreal cinema, kaleidoskopic. We may piece something together of the image we see, but that's hardly the point for me. I point a kaleidoskope to something to experience the phantasmagoria of the fracture, Snake of June works likewise. The portrait we get is not a lifelike depiction, but an expressionist one.

This may be linked to horror cinema due to Tsukamoto's credentials, but it's really New Wave in the best tradition of directors like Susumu Hani and Toshio Matsumoto.

Details

Official Sites:

Official [Japan] Official site [Netherlands]

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

13 June 2003 (UK)

Also Known As:

A Snake of June

Company Credits

Production Co:

Kaijyu Theater

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min 77 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1