Synopsis
Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.
1974 ‘砂の器’ Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura
Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.
Tetsurō Tamba Gō Katō Kensaku Morita Yoko Shimada Karin Yamaguchi Shin Saburi Yoshi Katō Kazuhide Haruta Ken Ogata Seiji Matsuyama Taketoshi Naitō Chishū Ryū Masumi Harukawa Yoshio Inaba Tokue Hanazawa Kinzō Shin Kappei Matsumoto Jun Hamamura Takanobu Hozumi Hatsuo Yamaya Kin Sugai Akiko Nomura Kazuko Imai Mitsuyo Inomata Yokichi Gotou Akira Sera Akira Kubo Keiji Tsuchida Kibaji Tankobo Show All…
曲終魂斷, Suna no utsuwa, Zerbrechliches Schicksal, Sandslottet, Zamek z piasku, Homokvár, Castelul de nisip, 砂の器:1974, 砂之器, Le vase de sable, El castillo de arena, Крепость на песке, Le Vase de sable, 모래 그릇
Crimes of identity, of lost existences and lost histories. Who is a person without their history? Unstructured, unformed, unmade – but also unbound, free to be whatever they want. Social upheaval brings with it blindness, the inherent dissonance and inconsistency in change overlooked in favor of enforced harmony. What happens to those who are left without a place? Who are left without a history? A burial ground without testament.
Some may say the coincidences here border on improbable, but it is more accurate to say they are inevitable. Even among those intentionally forgotten, those freed from the ties that bond, history leaves marks. They become its revenants.
You keep your past in a box, hidden away under lock and key, but no matter how much mileage and years you try to put between yourself and its contents, there’s always someone out there waiting, with another key, to open it up again; and tragedy envelops all when the pain is too great to bear.
A police procedural that reaaalllly takes its time on its way to becoming a whopper of a three-hanky melodrama. I had a lump in my throat, the lead detective was crying, the whole room of cops being briefed was wiping their eyes, it was a mess!
After an older man is found dead in a rail yard in Tokyo, the lead detective charged with first finding out the man's identity and then solving his murder (Tetsuro Tamba) follows leads that take him on long languorous rail journeys to various far-flung corners of Japan. If you're in a hurry for stuff to happen, you're shit out of luck. But the meticulous detail we're provided with - down to the subtitles providing…
I can't think of anything I can write without spoiling it. This film is a must-watch and for several reasons. There are a few things I can say, though, such as giving praise for its story, direction, cinematography, score, sound design, and acting. There's no other film like this. It might be to slow for some, but I can assure you it's worth it. Even if it is slow, it was never boring to me, and the film was over before I knew it because I was that engaged.
Very detailed crime procedural whose length becomes the point as the catch the killer and the whys get more intertwined. Engrossing, well cast and Nomura isvery good at shifting between the nuts and bolts of the investigation and the larger human canvas he is working on.
YES! Watch this! The Castle of Sand isn't too well-known in the west, but readers of Kinema Junpo ranked it the fourth best Japanese movie of all time, right behind Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story, and Ikiru. (Kinema Junpo is Japan's main cinephile magazine, kind of like a J-Cahiers.)
It's a police procedural that follows a homicide investigation in exhaustive detail, completely unafraid to pursue red herrings and dead ends and unsupported hunches and trails that go cold. Owing to the conventions of cinema, the murderer is never really in doubt in the audience's mind... for us, it's more of a whydunnit than a whodunnit. When the detectives start making progress, the movie shifts genre, expanding into something less detail-oriented and…
Every society has people they try to hide away, to erase from existence in the public consciousness and to push out of view and attention. In modern liberal democracies we push the homeless out of view. We lock up criminals in prisons and then forget them. We push the human beings whose slave labor is used to make our apple products and clothes out of view. In The Castle of the Sand, we see a story about a killer and a victim, the latter representing the model citizen, the former representing the forgotten one.
Miki, the victim, is praised for his deeds and perspective. He helps people, regardless of who they are… illegitimate children, the convicts, the lepers, the orphans,…
For its first hour and a half, Castle Of Sand is a fairly straightforward, albeit unusually languorous, police procedural. Inspector Imanishi (Tetsurô Tanba) investigates the murder of an elderly man who turns out to be a retired rural police officer (Ken Ogata). Except for inserting scenes that juxtapose events in the life of a rising young composer (Gô Katô) who becomes the prime suspect in the case, director Yoshitarô Nomura is primarily interested in the details of police work. We get very little information about Imanishi himself or the other detectives he works with. (A passing reference to his own son may be key to his behavior later on, though.) No doubt the heat and slower pace of Japan during…
The highlight here is the beautifully photographed tour around Japan full of stunning images with a really nice score. The patient and detailed police procedural of the first half is also quite strong and keeps things interesting. It makes a strange transition in the second half, not all of it works but certainly the heart was in the right place and the ending is touching. Overall the structure is pretty solid, it's a little overlong but mostly a decent work.
Steve's Priority Watchlist Project
I mentioned on my review of Any Number Can Win just yesterday that I love watching films which show people being very good at their jobs.
It's a conflicted feeling to have when the film you're watching is a cop one, sure, but still a feeling I couldn't shake off watching Tetsurô Tanba painstakingly piece together seemingly tiny clues about the murder of an old man in Tokyo. This is an actual procedural film - where nothing seems to be omitted in lieu of a faster pace or more 'excitement'.
Yoshitarô Nomura supposes that the interest will be generated from Tanba getting closer and closer to finding the culprit. It's a…