The first chapter, “The French Doll,” introduces the
characters, opening with the moment that Emili Adachi begins at her new school.
The teacher introduces her to the class as the daughter of the new director of
a local factory, which immediately sets her apart. And as Emili takes her seat,
the film gives us two two-shots of the four classmates whose lives will be
forever changed by Emili’s death. Those shots are both perfectly natural and
rather creepy. Meanwhile, someone in the area is breaking into homes and
stealing French dolls.
While the girls are outside playing, a man, whose face
and head are not visible due to interesting and deliberate framing, tells them
he’s repairing an air duct and needs the help of one of them. And as we see a
wide shot of Emili following the man off, the film’s title comes up. The others
continue to joke around, then after a while become nervous. After finding
Emili’s body, Maki takes charge, telling each of the others what to do.
Six months later, on Emili’s birthday, Asako (Kyoko
Koizuma) gathers the four surviving girls together and berates them for not
being able to recall the killer’s face. “Your stupidity is the reason they
haven’t caught him after six months,” she tells them. It’s an excellent
scene, because you can understand her frustration and anger, and you wonder
yourself why the girls can’t offer any help; but on the other hand, they are
just children, and they’re being treated by Asako as if they’re older than they
are. Plus, the design of the shots is wonderful. The four girls are on one side
of the table, while Asako is on the other. Asako appoints them with either
finding the killer or paying a penance.
Fifteen years later, Sae works in a beauty salon of
sorts. Takahiro Otsuki, a client, wants to meet with her, and Sae’s boss tells
her she must. Sae tells Takahio, “I’m defective as a female,” and you
feel that the childhood incident stunted or impeded her natural growth as a
woman, leaving her forever as a child. But as Takahio explains his own defects,
she is won over.
I love the framing of this film. There is a scene where
Sae goes to Takahiro’s sparsely furnished home, and is seated at a table deep
in the shot. In the foreground is a piece of furniture, a shelving unit with
nothing on it, and this works to frame Sae, enclosing her in a box, as if she
is the missing French doll of her youth. And Takahiro is so delightfully
creepy, in how he treats her, and in the stories he tells her, particularly the
excellent one regarding the wasp.
The second chapter, “Emergency PTA Meeting,” returns to
the children playing, but this time when the girls split up, we follow Maki,
who goes looking for the teacher. Fifteen years later she herself works as a
teacher, having become the very person who couldn’t offer help back in her
youth. She is now quite strict, even to the point of drawing complaints from
parents. A complaint over the confiscation of a girl’s favorite hairpin, a
seemingly insignificant episode, reveals Maki’s troubled mind. “I don’t
approve of grade school girls dressing up too much,” she says. She points
out it was a very ornate hairpin, and adds, “Neither she nor her parents
have any idea how dangerous it is to entice men before her time.” And if
she was unable to help Emili, she is determined to protect the children now.
Fifteen years after the murder of Emili, Akiko is in a
holding cell, telling Asako that she’s paid her penance. Immediately we see
that she’s a bit unhinged, simply by the way she moves, the way she carries
herself. She tells Asako that she began to live her life like a bear. One thing
that’s interesting about this chapter is that it isn’t simply Emili’s murder
that has affected and shaped her life, but also Asako’s reaction to hearing the
news. Upon finding Emili’s body, it is Akiko that is sent to Emili’s house to
tell her mother. In Asako’s rush to get to the school, she pushes Akiko aside,
and Akiko falls, resulting in a bloody nose and in her new dress being ruined.
And she felt somehow her pride in her new dress was at fault. As an adult,
Akiko still lives at home, and becomes close to her brother’s wife’s daughter,
becoming protective of her in a way in which she wasn’t of Emili.
The fourth chapter follows Yuka, who immediately strikes
us as the most well adjusted. Even as a child, after Asako assigned them
penance, she is the only one who seemed able to put it into perspective,
telling the others, “I don’t care at all about what Emili’s mother said,”
and then: “I don’t believe what grownups say. You should do whatever you
want. That’s what I’m doing.” And as an adult she has her own flower shop.
But it turns out she’s maybe more of a mess than the others.
In each of the episodes, we learn a bit more about Asako,
who is then the focus of the final chapter. And we learn there is a lot more
behind this woman than the loss of a child. And yes, there is at least one big
coincidence in the story, but it is addressed as such. And the film as a whole
is completely engrossing. It is so well shot, so well-constructed, so
well-paced. And I got completely caught up in the mystery of it, as well as its
characters.
Special Features
The second DVD includes interviews with writer/director
Kiyoshi Kurosawa and cast members Kyoko Koizuma, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yu Aoi, Eiko
Koike, Sakuro Ando, and Chizuru Ikewaki. Kurosawa talks about writing the
screenplay, and about the character of Asako. The cast members talk about their
characters. Teruyuki Kagawa also talks a bit about Kurosawa’s directing style.
Yu Aoi mentions how her chapter is probably the saddest of the stories. She
says, “There is a fine line between perverted desire and pure love.”
These interviews total approximately twenty-three minutes. This DVD package
also includes a booklet with essays by David Bordwell and Tom Mes.
Penance was written and directed by Kiyoshi
Kurosawa, who also wrote and directed the excellent 2001 film Kairo.
It’s based on the novel by Kanae Minato. Penance was released on Blu-ray
and DVD on November 18, 2014 through Doppelganger Releasing. The film is
presented in Japanese with English subtitles.
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