Intentions of Murder (Akai Satsui)
- filmscreed
- Jul 16, 2014
- 4 min read
From the very first moments that we meet Sadako, it’s evident that her life is not right. In the films’ opening scene, she comes to meet her husband and mother-in-law at a train station, and she is treated like a dull –witted child. This sets up a pattern that will repeat throughout Shohei Imamura’s film - How Sadako is disregarded and under-rated by those around her, and how she manages to carry on.
In truth, Sadako (Masumi Harukawa) does have the deck stacked against her. She’s a bit on the heavy side, and is a kind of dim. Her position is a bit complicated – She lives as the “wife” of a library worker, although it seems more like she is a maid, and in truth she is not married to the man. The mother-in-law thinks she is a simpleton who is not worthy of her son, and overrides her in the parenting of her own young son. The films opening makes clear that Sadako’s grandmother was the mistress of her husband’s grandfather, and as such she lives under the curse of that long-ago sin. Because she is connected by blood to it, she is also tainted. Her lot is cast.
In a similar vein to the work of the great Kenji Mizoguchi, Imamura often concerned himself with the way Japanese society treated its women. He was fascinated with the hypocrisy of society, and the way that women dealt with this, and carried on. In Intentions of Murder, these themes are in full flower. There’s a moment early in the film where we see a sign that reads “Without rules, the house will not function”. That notion is the bedrock of Sadako’s house, but tellingly, the rules only apply to her. Her husband Riichi (the great Kô Nishimura) rebukes her constantly about how her actions reflect upon him, while at the same time carrying on an affair with an associate at the library (Yuko Kusunoki).
One day, however, a strange man (Shigeru Tsuyuguchi) invades the house, and rapes Sadako at knife-point. In the aftermath she does think of suicide, but she instead starts to concentrate on covering up the attack, and thus protecting her honor (Such as it is). The rapist is portrayed not as strictly a violent psychopath, but as scared and morose, albeit with violent tendencies. In the aftermath of the rape, He seems tender and contrite to Sadako.
The thing about the rape is that the encounter leads to more, as the rapist Hiraoko keeps pursuing Sadako, now professing his love for her, and begging him to go away to Tokyo with him. In a confrontation onboard a train, another attack ends when he is overtaken by a heart attack, and she retrieves his medicine to save him.
It’s fascinating to explore the themes that Imamura broaches with regards to male vs female characters here. The two main male characters in Intentions, Riichi and Hiraoko, for all their haughty pride (Riichi) and sexual danger (Hiraoko) are weak and flawed men. The tubercular Riichi wears a surgical mask everywhere he goes, and needs to use a ridiculous-looking inhaler at home. He reacts with panic when he starts to suspect that Sadako is keeping secrets about another man. Hiraoko is a jazz drummer who is dying of a heart condition. It’s no accident that these 2 males are portrayed thusly. Both work to prop up the role that society has assigned them – one by the veneer of respectability, the other by the threat of violence. In their hearts , both men fear that they are frauds.
By contrast, the women are flawed but resilient. Sadako, simple minded as she is, decides that the rape (and subsequent pregnancy) will not destroy her. Her obsession becomes getting rid of Hiraoko and saving her son, who her mother-in-law has taken legal guardianship of. Even Yoshiko, the library worker whom Riichi is having the affair with is given a substantial amount of gravitas. She is imperfect as portrayed here. She wears thick glasses, and her loneliness makes her desperate to lure Riichi away from his wife. She is the one who starts to put together the pieces of Sadako’s relationship with another man, and she is tragically relentless in her pursuit of that goal.
Imamura infuses this story with visuals that equate the characters with animals. There’s a recurring image of Sadakos sons’ pet mice running on a wheel, an obvious allegory for the plight of Sadako. There’s a memorable shot early in the film of a silkworm being crushed in Sadako’s hand as she is beaten in a flashback sequence. Shots of the mice in their cage are echoed in shots of Riichi and his mistress behind wire at the library. Imamura is suggesting that we have no more control over our lives than these poor animals do.
Circle back again to the films title – INTENTIONS of Murder. For a film ostensibly about murder, this one doesn’t spend a lot of energy on the mechanics of it. The killing as planned involves Sadako poisoning her rapist, and she gets the perfect opportunity as the two trek across a snowy mountain after their train is delayed. They are followed by Yoshiko with camera in hand. This segment of the film is a visual tour-de-force as Imamura and cinematographer Shinsaku Himeda use the harsh, snowy backdrop and jerky hand-held camera to create a feeling of disorientation and anxiety as Sadako waits for her chance. When she finally gets it, she backs out…and is berated for her weakness by Hiraoko.
The conclusion of IoM could, I guess, be called a happy ending, but it doesn’t arrive at it in the typical cinematic fashion. There’s no grand show of the vanquishing of evil, and the triumph of the wholesome heroine. It’s more a case of Sanako surviving a battle of attrition. Notice the final exchange between Sanako and her husband. The abuse is absent, replaced by almost a resignation and acceptance as he remarks that she will become an official member of the family. She has achieved what she wanted, but it’s more a sense of relief than jubilation. Imamuras’ film is at its core about survival and adaptation. Here is the template you are expected to live your life by. Sanako chooses to apply her own rules, and is able to come out the other side. Whether or not that turns out for the best is anybody’s guess.
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