Films

«The Third Murder»

5 reading minutes

written by Hélène Lavoyer · April 25, 2018 · 0 comment

Cinema Wednesdays - Hélène Lavoyer

«Until now, I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. It can't get any worse.»

On the banks of the river, far from the hustle and bustle of the night and prying eyes, Misumi (Koji Yakusho) and his former employer walk one behind the other. Piano and cello sing in crescendo their litany, all too sweet at this moment when, before the viewer's eyes, Misumi murders and then burns the man who fired him a few days earlier.

Behind the glass of the visiting room to which they will often return, Master Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) and his associates, Daisuke Settsu (Kotaro Yoshida) and Kawashima (Shinnosuke Mitsushima), hear the uncertain testimony of Misumi, who has already confessed to the murder to the police and prosecutor. Since backtracking is strategically impossible if Shigemori wishes to avoid the death penalty for his client, they decide to plead guilty.

Yet Shigemori will never stop trying to mitigate the sentence; winning trials is his job. And as his investigation progresses, many questions arise and muddy the waters; Misumi himself seems dedicated to staining the truth with omissions and contradictions, and the testimony of Sakie (Suzu Hirose), the victim's daughter, still leads the indifferent Master Shigemori to doubt his client's guilt.

The mystery that never solves itself

As the film by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Like Father, Like Son, 2013) on this murder scene, covered by the beauty of a tranquil melody and then revealing the judicial dimension, it's hard not to expect a classic scenario from Western cinema and TV series: a murder, a culprit, an investigation, poetic pleas and, at the end of it all, the inevitable judgment.

But nothing, nothing the talented director presents jumps out at us. Better still, the mystery unfolds in dribs and drabs, and the unity of soundtrack, images and dialogue pushes boredom to the point of total obliteration; a tall order for such a long film - 124 minutes.

Hirokazu Kore-eda is a master at creating coherence from a multitude of seemingly disparate elements. He constantly challenges the audience's expectations and speculations, thanks in particular to alternating shots and landscapes, and a perfectly paced relay between silences and dialogue or music.

The enigmatic dialogues, in which we see ourselves tossed from one truth to another, also raise questions that persist and deepen: to whom returns the right of judgment? Who is the master of truth, of Justice? While it seems obvious that neither the lawyer nor the accused are its servants, the evolution of history proves that the just are not always found mallet in hand. On the contrary, the preservation of their reputations and deadlines is more important than the truth.

Ultimately, the identity of the culprit no longer matters, and neither does the need for us to give him a face. It's this questioning of legal institutions, the legal profession and, above all, the complexity of reality due to the many different ways of looking at it, that overrides the clear-cut denouement.

Image quality

As we said, the variety of settings in which the characters evolve adds a great deal to this film, which would no doubt have lost its appeal had it not been possible to «live» their evolution with them. While strategy and ambition take over in the three lawyers' offices, it's this increasingly opaque mystery that takes over the places where Maître Shigemori seeks the truth.

Without ever resorting to special effects, Hirokazu Kore-eda follows the peregrinations of the lawyers. These take them to a remote valley, where they hope to find Misumi's daughter, whom he hasn't seen in over thirty years. As the train winds its way between snow-capped mountains, the camera rises to reveal the beauty of this icy, almost uninhabited landscape.

Again in the white setting of the winter season, a scene depicting the memory of a snowball fight between Misumi and her daughter - a scene to which Shigemori finds himself unexpectedly linked - exposes the silhouettes lying in the thick white carpet from above. Angelica.

But the most striking, memorable and surprising scenes occur in the visiting room, where we repeatedly see Master Shigemori and Misumi face each other. For these scenes, the camera is positioned so that both characters are in the shot, as if the viewer, leaning against the wall of the visiting room, were looking through the glass.

In this same environment, the director demonstrates a flawless technique and imagination: in the final dialogue, the reflections of the two men meet, both looking in the same direction. At the end of the scene, the impression is created that it's just one man answering to himself, as the two faces increasingly merge into one.

Taking the time

And here's an art that Japanese cinema conducts better than any other: that of slowness. With its slow rhythm, reinforced by the melody that grows as surreptitiously as it disappears, and succinct dialogue, attention is constantly focused on the image, and the expectation of revelation grows as the film progresses. What's more, the absence of dubbing is a pleasure for this kind of film, in which the characters talk, give each other time, question and listen to each other. The Japanese language is further sublimated by this slow, yet breathtaking pace.

Without hesitation, The Third Murder is one of the most beautiful films we've ever seen. For its images, its technique, its curious slowness, its dialogue and the characters and relationships it embodies. This is a true masterpiece from which only one, infinitesimal episode, could be erased. But we won't talk about that one, lest the discrepancy count for too much.