Faceless

Kaburagi is taken into custody as the suspect in a brutal murder and escapes. For four hundred and eighty eight days he hides, moving around Japan. In that time he meets several people: a woman, a young man, another. Detective Matanuki is looking for him and speaks to everyone who met him. But each describes a different man. One says kind, one says cold, one says frightening. Whether they are speaking about the same person becomes unclear. Michihito Fujii directs. Ryusei Yokohama plays Kaburagi, with Riho Yoshioka and Takayuki Yamada in the cast. The structure rests on statements. The film does not give events in order; what each witness describes is shown as a separate section and the sections contradict each other. What it asks is whether identity is fixed. Kaburagi behaves like a different person at every encounter and the narrative does not say which is real. Fujii is known for realist social drama, and here too he joins a story of flight to the pressure of the media, the police and public opinion. The length of the flight is the engine: how did the man stay invisible so long, and why did those who helped him help. Its limit is the last section; as the contradictory accounts are brought together the explanation becomes too orderly. Who it is for: viewers who like Japanese crime films and narratives told from many views. Who it is not for: the structure makes it hard to follow, it is long, and the ending does not answer everything.