Gemini

At the end of the Meiji era, Yukio, a well-off doctor, runs the practice he inherited from his father. He is married to a woman who has lost her memory and whose past he does not know. A strange smell starts in the house. First his father dies, then his mother. Then he wakes at the bottom of the well in the garden, and the man standing above him has his face. The film treats the twin not as a secret but as the return of what was suppressed. The doctor turns away the poor who come to him as carriers of disease, and the brother who comes out of the well comes from exactly that quarter. All of its politics live in that opposition. Shinya Tsukamoto directed, from a story by Edogawa Rampo. Masahiro Motoki plays Yukio. Tsukamoto's familiar industrial imagery and stop motion are absent here; in their place are period sets, violently coloured costumes and faces in close-up. The underlying idea is the same, though: the animal beneath the civilised surface. Who it is for: anyone curious about Japanese horror and period films, and about Tsukamoto's manner. Who it is not for: anyone wanting explanation. The woman's past stays unclear, some scenes are deliberately ugly, and the ending is left unresolved on purpose.