'A Man' (original title is 'Aru otoko'), the 2022 film directed by Kei Ishikawa, is a Japanese film with an European flavor. It is a detective mystery with many twists and turns, which demands the permanent attention of the viewers and which will satisfy with its intelligence and logic many of the fans of this genre of films, appreciated in Europe. And yet, the film, which is the adaptation of the book of the same name by Keiichiro Hirano, deals with a very acute Japanese social problem. Every year in this country many tens of thousands of people disappear. Some of them change their identities and begin to live a second - or perhaps more than a second - life in distant and different places of Japan. It seems that this phenomenon is not only possible but much more widespread in Japan than in the rest of the world. 'Aru otoko' proposes a sophisticated plot, a game of identities which connects the destinies of several characters, each of them being obliged to answer questions like 'who is the man next to me?' or even 'who am I?'.
The first and last frames of 'A Man' include the painting 'La reproduction interdite' by René Magritte. Successive mirrors reproduce from the same impossible angle the silhouette of a man, without figure and without identity, as in many of the paintings of the Belgian surrealist master. Between these frames we are dealing with several successive stories in which the characters are in a position to question the identities of those close to them and of themselves. Rie is a single mother raising her little boy after a divorce caused by the traumatic loss of another child. The opportunity to rebuild her life seems to appear in the person of Daisuke, a delicate young man with a passion for painting, but after a few years he dies in a work accident, leaving her alone again with another child to care about. At the husband's memorial, his brother appears. It appears that they are a wealthy family, but the brother claims that the person who had used Daisuke's name was not the same man. Surprised, she hires the services of lawyer Akira to solve the mystery. Who was the man she had lived with, married, fathered a child with? What name will her baby have? Where is the true Daisuke? The lawyer discovers that there is a real industry of changing and forging identities. He himself has an identity problem, being the son of an immigrant from Korea, in a country that hardly accepts foreigners. The investigation leads to the elucidation of the mystery of the dead husband's identity, but each of the characters is left to face their own identity problems and their consequences.
The stories in 'A Man' unfold at a pace that combines the psychological analysis and ceremonial behavior specific to Japanese cinema with the rules of detective films. The narrative begins with Rie's story to shift its focus to Akira's investigation and to solving the mystery of Daisuke's identity. In two of the film's most powerful scenes, the lawyer faces a prison inmate, a master of identity forgeries. In a manner reminiscent of 'The Silence of the Lambs' (minus the violence), the convict will provide cryptic answers, but which contain clues to the keys to the mystery. The road to elucidation will not be easy, and the lawyer himself will pay a price in his own personal life. The combination of these styles and narrative threads work very well in Kei Ishikawa's film, acting is excellent, and I believe that 'A Man' will be well received by a wide international audience, as it has been so far on the festival circuit. The only thing I fear is remakes.
The first and last frames of 'A Man' include the painting 'La reproduction interdite' by René Magritte. Successive mirrors reproduce from the same impossible angle the silhouette of a man, without figure and without identity, as in many of the paintings of the Belgian surrealist master. Between these frames we are dealing with several successive stories in which the characters are in a position to question the identities of those close to them and of themselves. Rie is a single mother raising her little boy after a divorce caused by the traumatic loss of another child. The opportunity to rebuild her life seems to appear in the person of Daisuke, a delicate young man with a passion for painting, but after a few years he dies in a work accident, leaving her alone again with another child to care about. At the husband's memorial, his brother appears. It appears that they are a wealthy family, but the brother claims that the person who had used Daisuke's name was not the same man. Surprised, she hires the services of lawyer Akira to solve the mystery. Who was the man she had lived with, married, fathered a child with? What name will her baby have? Where is the true Daisuke? The lawyer discovers that there is a real industry of changing and forging identities. He himself has an identity problem, being the son of an immigrant from Korea, in a country that hardly accepts foreigners. The investigation leads to the elucidation of the mystery of the dead husband's identity, but each of the characters is left to face their own identity problems and their consequences.
The stories in 'A Man' unfold at a pace that combines the psychological analysis and ceremonial behavior specific to Japanese cinema with the rules of detective films. The narrative begins with Rie's story to shift its focus to Akira's investigation and to solving the mystery of Daisuke's identity. In two of the film's most powerful scenes, the lawyer faces a prison inmate, a master of identity forgeries. In a manner reminiscent of 'The Silence of the Lambs' (minus the violence), the convict will provide cryptic answers, but which contain clues to the keys to the mystery. The road to elucidation will not be easy, and the lawyer himself will pay a price in his own personal life. The combination of these styles and narrative threads work very well in Kei Ishikawa's film, acting is excellent, and I believe that 'A Man' will be well received by a wide international audience, as it has been so far on the festival circuit. The only thing I fear is remakes.
