REVIEW: CHARISMA
REVIEW: KIYOSHI KUROSAWA [ 1999 ] 104'
REVIEW: NIKKATSU CORPORATION / KING
REVIEW: RECORD CO.
CAST: KOJI YAKUSHO, HIROYUKI IKEUCHI,
CAST: REN OSUGI, YORIKO DOUGUCHI
WTFFILM RATING:
CRITICAL RATING:
WTF-FILMOMETER: CIRCUS IS IN TOWN

While negotiating a hostage situation between an environmental activist and a government official, Yabuike (Koji Yakusho) has a brief moment of uncertainty that results in both men dying. Given , he leaves a brief message with his family and has one of his colleagues drop him off at long abandoned bus stop outside of Tokyo.

Written a full 10 years prior to making it to the screen, CHARISMA is without a doubt one of Kurosawa's most bizarre films. Whereas the blend of story, location, and meditation on various social concerns are well balanced in films like CURE [1997], KAIRO [2001], and DOPPELGANGER [2003], the latter of the two take hold early on in CHARISMA and rarely, if ever, let the first get in their way. The result is an intelligent and utterly compelling film that manages to remain nearly completely incomprehensible for the duration of its running time. Kurosawa himself admits that he has come to no clear conclusions as to what the film means - leaving CHARISMA well open to varying interpretations.

The screenplay for CHARISMA, first completed in 1989, earned Kiyoshi Kurosawa a spot at the Sundance Workshop - an experience that he described as a ' precious and special time' for him. It also taught him the differences between film making in American and film making in Japan, particularly in regards to characterization. Particularly in the case of CHARISMA, the main character quite often has no set goal or reason for what he is doing. He simply exists while various polarized factions (we'll get to them in the synopsis shortly) run amok around him. This was in direct contradiction to the standard operating procedure in American film making, where the action a character takes is typically to progress the story or his character towards a specific place.

After waiting through the evening for a bus that never arrives, Yabuike heads into the forest area outside of Tokyo. With darkness quickly overtaking the forest around him he decides to take refuge in an abandoned car. While he is sleeping the car is set fire to and an unknown figure drags him safely away from it. The next morning a team of militaristic forest officials are out in droves. It seems that some unknown force is causing trees of all ages - including those planted just days before by the men - to die. If not stopped it will mean an end to the entire forest. On their way back to base camp they discover Yabuike. He is given a drink and offers a brief account of why he is there for the officials. Soon enough he is on his own again - his gun and license stolen the night before by the unknown fire starter - and after a call from his boss extending his leave indefinitely he heads back into the trees..

While aimlessly wandering through the woods he discovers a clump of mushrooms and, after a moment's hesitation, decides to eat them. As luck would have it they are of a hallucinogenic variety known by people in the area as Laughing Mushrooms. After ingesting an inordinate amount of them he stumbles upon another man who escaped to the forest - this one being quite different from Yabuike in that he hung himself quite some time before. At the site of the corpse Yabuike begins to laugh hysterically and heads off in no particular direction while serenading himself with a unique representation of the William Tell Overture. He stumbles upon a dilapidated hotel and opts to sleep there - in a drained swimming pool - for the night. He is awakened once again, this time by a mysterious figure looming above him. The figure, presumably the one who set fire to the car, returns his gun and license and says, "In exchange you give me your heart."

The next morning Yabuike is stumbled upon by the forest officials again - this time they're wondering what he, a cop, is doing wandering around the area. Yabuike is silent, however - he has developed a taste for the mushrooms from the day before and, with considerable futility, is trying his luck with whatever he can find along the side of the road. The head of the officials takes him back into the forest and, via the temptation of various foodstuffs, has Yabuike lead him to the hallucinogenic mushrooms. He collects a number of them and, along with a few other people, ingests them that night at the base camp. The next morning Yabuike escorts one of the camp members to the site of a strange gnarled tree surrounded by metallic supports. Just as the escorted man is taking samples the unknown man from the old hotel, wielding a pipe, runs up and frightens him away.

Yabuike stays behind and works with the young man, still unidentified, as he preens and fertilizes the mysterious tree. For whatever reason it is fairing better than the other trees in the forest and is surrounded by a wide expanse of open ground. Eventually it is determined that the officials believe that the tree, dubbed "Charisma", is somehow poisoning the surrounding landscape. They intend to uproot it and sell it to a collector of exotic plants for a great deal of money. In stark contrast to the officials is a female biologist who intends to destroy the tree. A veritable war ensues between the two factions and the reality of the forest begins to look no different from the reality of the world Yabuike was attempting to escape. In the end he is put in the same situation as he was in beginning of the film and his brief existence in the forest makes all the difference.

CHARISMA is, to put it lightly, a very difficult film to review and is certainly the most difficult film I've ever attempted to. Kurosawa said of his initial intentions for the film: "it's also a sort of American-style Indiana Jones / two-teams-vying-for-a-treasure film. That's how I started it. But instead of a box of treasure I decided to make the treasure a tree that's in a forest. . . I would like to make a movie like Indy Jones, but there aren't any real people like Indy Jones." CHARISMA ended up blending a number of genres by including an awkward romance, comedy, drama, and more than a few scenes that are quite horrific in nature. These elements coalesce to form a film that, no matter how hard I try to classify it, doesn't really fit in any one particular place on the scale. This certainly isn't the first time that Kurosawa has defied genre expectations, but that tendency was taken to extremes with CHARISMA.

Regardless of whatever narrative confusion there may be within the film - and there's a lot - it remains one of the director's most beautiful and emotive films. His lust for deteriorating locations is taken to an extreme here with nothing at all in the film appearing in the slightest big new. Shot composition is a direct extension from that of the director's previous film, CURE, with many long and distanced (neutral if you will) takes on the action that's unfolding before the camera. Adding to the emotional impact of CHARISMA is the audio work done for the film. While also a direct extension of that from CURE, Kurosawa's is at the top of his game in terms of sound mixing with this film. From unnerving and understated ambient noises that permeate much of the running time to the several quite upbeat musical compositions that are present, CHARISMA proves to be an entirely unique and compelling auditory experience.

Putting in another fine performance is veteran Kurosawa actor Koji Yakusho. His portrayal of the meandering detective Yabuike is difficult not to compare to the character of Takebe from CURE - unintentional as it was, that film seems like a fitting precursor to the events in CHARISMA. Also putting in a strong performance is Hiroyuki Ikeuchi as the young and brooding carer for the tree - Kiriyama. From his first true appearance as the shadowy figure asking for Yabuike's heart to the unexpected and violent climax of his character's development, Ikeuchi's performance is excellent and comparable in ways to Masato Hagiwara's from the previous film. Other performances are ample but there are so many characters running about that it's difficult to tell if any single one stands out amongst the others.

The story for CHARISMA, as has already been stated, is one of the least understandable in Kurosawa's career. That said, many of the various bizarre points brought up throughout the narrative do resolve themselves towards the end of the film, albeit in not entirely usual ways. Yabuike being forced to react to what is ostensibly the same situation at the end of the film as he did in the beginning and how the rest of the events of the film have affected his character is one of the obvious examples. Less obvious are the connections between the poisoning of the groundwater by the female biologist, the transformation of the workers for the forest officials into a disturbingly violent group of thugs under the apparent control of the tree, and the murder of the biologist's sister at the hands of Kiriyama are much less clearly defined. The ultimate end to the story is Kurosawa at his apocalyptic best, and to give it away here would be a shame.

Kurosawa has, with the film CHARISMA, woven an amusing, compelling, and nearly incomprehensible meditation on the state of existence in modern day Japan that may well be his most beautifully made film to date. As I mentioned earlier, the meaning of the film is very much up for interpretation. Some view the forest as a strange vision of hell where many people talk of leaving but no one ever seems to succeed. Another interpretation, and the one that I find most fitting, is that the forest is a sort of macrocosm of the rest of the world with various factions quibbling about various things for various reasons. The complex and often confusing nature of the narrative for CHARISMA will probably turn many viewers off to the film. Regardless of that it comes recommended from me as Kurosawa at his stylistic best, though I would also recommend warming up to some of the director's other films before sitting down to this one.