Perfect Education:40 Days Of Love

Perfect Education: 40 Days of Love (2001)
Yoichi Nishiyama, Director.
89 Minutes.





Psychologist Akai sees a depressed young woman by a bridge outside his office every day. Curious, he approaches her and she propositions him. He politely declines but offers her treatment to help her cope with what is bothering her. She accepts and he soon elects to use hypnosis as a treatment. Through this hypnosis it is revealed that several years earlier she was abducted by a teacher named Tatsuaki Sumikawa and held captive for forty days. From this revelation, the rest of the film takes place in a series of flashbacks, as Haruka explains the circumstances of her time in captivity.


Perfect Education 40 Days of Love is the second film in a series of seven films in total, (if I have my information correct) that are unrelated to each other beyond the title. I haven't seen any of the other films in the series, myself, but this one works fine as a stand alone film. It was the debut film from director Yoichi Nishiyama, who also directed such films as Trouble Maker Lucy, Fateful, and Gurozuka. It is also the film debut performance of Japanese model Rie Rukami, who plays the role of kidnapped girl Haruka Tsumura. The kidnapper, Tatsuaki Sumikawa is played by Yasuhito Hida who may be known to readers from his role as Bad Ronin Kuroiwa in Samurai Fiction among other performances. (I also maintain that Hida looks like a Japanese John Cazale in this.) Rounding out the primary cast of the film is veteran character actor Naoto Takenaka, playing the role of the psychologist, Akai.

One of the things that I think that the film handles really well is that Sumikawa never feels like a one note character. Right from the beginning, he seems at odds with himself about the actions he's taking. For example, in his one attempt to force himself on her sexually, he stops as soon as she starts to struggle and begins apologizing for his actions. In a standard exploitation style film, which is what this one looks like it would be on the surface, you might expect the Sumikawa character to be aggressive and forcing himself violently on Haruka throughout the film. But this isn't just a basic exploitation film, coated in the typical gratuitous sexualized violence. Instead, he comes across as a lonely and conflicted man, having taken this extreme step of abducting a woman out of desperation for companionship and wanting to teach her to become the perfect lover for him. Although it certainly doesn't excuse the character's actions, it does help to humanize him.


Another element of the film that I found to be a really interesting touch is that we spend the majority of the time with Haruka in the small apartment, sealed off from the outside world. It is not until she is allowed to venture out one evening with Sumikawa that we find out the degree of effort being put forth to find her by her family and the police. We only see her perception of things, which is limited to a single television news segment near the beginning of her abduction.

The film never really goes to the kinds of extremes that one might expect from it, and that is to its benefit, I think. It elevates the film from being simply exploitation and turns out to be something of a meditation on loneliness and the desire for love. Although unconventional of course, it is made abundantly clear that Sumikawa truly does love Haruka, and does care about her happiness in his own, very flawed way. Also in a flawed sort of way, Haruka comes to love Sumikawa as well, and eventually starts to refer to him as 'Dad'. This rather disturbing moniker is chosen by Sumikawa simply because, as he puts it, he couldn't come up with any better idea.



This is not to say that the film is void of exploitative elements, it certainly has it's share. For a good portion of the film, Haruka is topless, bound with rope or chain, and gagged. Often treated like a pet, she spends her days bound up on the bed with a TV and food to occupy her until Sumikawa returns home from work. Every night he bathes her, takes a polaroid photo of her and writes the date and her weight on it. These pictures are posted on the wall, presumably to track the progression of her time with him. It is during one of the first of these baths, in what I thought was a particularly odd move, he leans over and licks her soap covered shoulder. Getting a tongue coated in bath soap doesn't seem like a desirable choice to me, but that's just one person's opinion.



Rie Rukami represents the weakest link of the film for me. She does a decent job in her role, but is clearly outranked by her cast mates. Having not seen any of her other films, it's kind of unclear to me if she has difficulty expressing emotions as an actress or if it is the character that she is playing. We learn early on that her character grew up without a father and is a rather quiet and lonely girl who doesn't feel particularly close to her friends. This sense of detachment that she carries could be argued as being portrayed in the occasionally wooden looking performance that she gives for the first two thirds of the film.

While it is not without its flaws, all in all, I think Perfect Education 40 Days of Love is certainly worth a look for fans of the genre. It can be found for rent or purchase at Japanflix.com. They also have other interesting looking Japanese films available that I've never seen.


Would you like to read a second opinion? Check out this review by my friend Coffin Jon, of VCinema Podcast. =)


You can view the trailer for Perfect Education: 40 Days of Love below:


Comments are always welcome!

Calvaire (2004)

Calvaire (2004) 88 Minutes. Fabrice du Welz, Director.


Calvaire tells the story of singer Marc Stevens, a traveling performer at retirement communities and Christmas parties, who has car trouble one night while traveling through the wilderness of southern Belgium on his way to perform at a holiday gala. When his van breaks down in the rainy evening, he encounters a strange young man looking for his dog who agrees to lead him to Bartel's Inn for the night. Paul Bartel, a lonely innkeeper, at first seems very friendly and eager to have Stevens as a guest, but things become more troubling as Stevens tries to get his van fixed and move on to his next gig. Marc finds himself in an increasingly disturbing position as his situation becomes more and more out of hand between dealing with Bartel's strange behavior and the even stranger population of the nearby village, whom Bartel clearly fears.


This is the first feature film by Belgian writer/director Fabrice du Welz, who would later write and direct Vinyan, a harrowing descent into madness film about a couple seeking their lost child in the jungles of Thailand. Calvaire stars Laurent Lucas as protagonist Marc Stevens, who's other film work I am unfamiliar with, but does a decent job in the film's lead role. Jackie Berroyer gives us an excellent and strangely moving performance as Paul Bartel, the innkeeper. Also starring the great Phillipe Nahon, best known to me from his roles in Brotherhood of the Wolf, I Stand Alone, and as the psychotic madman in High Tension, as the leader of the villagers. The last member of the cast that I felt was particularly noteworthy was Brigitte Lahaie, star of many 70s and 80's French exploitation and horror films (even the occasional hardcore film), who has a minor role in the film as Mademoiselle Vicky, one of the nurses at the retirement home.


Even though this film is presented to us as a horror film with a sprinkling of what may be darkly comic moments, I find it to be primarily a very bleak drama about loneliness. Almost every character in the film feels desperately lonely and isolated, and it's clearly had profound effects on them. The innkeeper is the most clear example of this, as he reveals early on that his wife, Gloria, has left him some time ago. We learn early on that Bartel was a comedian before becoming an innkeeper and that he quit doing comedy when Gloria left, as she broke his heart. His longing for companionship is clear from the beginning, and in Stevens, he sees a kinship as they were both performers. But the loneliness is clear in seemingly everyone that Marc encounters from Mademoiselle Vicky at the beginning to Boris, the strange man looking for his missing dog, Bella. The struggle to escape the sadness and loneliness that many of the characters appear to feel is what seems to be the primary motivation for their extreme actions.


The film, while having a simple premise and rather linear plot as a survival/escape from wilderness madmen movie, has interesting little things about it. While typically a film will give the viewer a good idea of what the main protagonist's motivations are and an idea of what kind of person he is, this film does not. He is intentionally left vague to us, he is almost like a vessel to be used as a focal point for the other things that happen in the film. We know very little about him. On the other hand, we are given a much more clear idea about the history and motivations of Bartel. Often, at least while as long as it is left up to him, Stevens seems to be disinterested in the lives of those around him, and interacts with them only in as much as is required of him.

Another perhaps interesting side note is that we see very few women in the film. Once Marc finishes packing up his van and leaves the retirement home that he performs at in the beginning, the film never shows us another female character. The village seems to not have a female population. It's as if they have all vanished. The only indicator that this is not the case is in a tiny scene Bartel passes a group of identically dressed children in the woods. The viewer is left to come up with their own conclusions about why this is, and what it means.



One of the interesting directorial choices I noticed in this film is that there is almost no music in it. The majority of the sound in the entire film is made up of ambient sounds and times when characters are speaking. This only adds to the sense of isolation, in a way, by not using the music to add tension to the environment. The one time that music is present in the film, it is because a character is playing a piano in what might be the strangest dance sequence I have ever seen. Truly creepy and unsettling. The director also tends not to show very much on screen violence, the majority of it happens off camera. This may be due to budget constraints, or may simply be a directorial decision. It's a fine choice, as the material is strong enough to still feel disturbing and have a sense of dread building without using visual effects to achieve it. There is a lot of violence in the movie, we just tend to see it's effects afterward, similar to the famous ear sequence in Reservoir Dogs.

Also of note, I was excited to see that viewers are once again treated to the excellent camera work of Benoit Debie. Benoit Debie is one of my favorite cinematographers working today. He has impressed me very much with the handful of films he's worked on that I've seen. (Irreversible, Calvaire, and Vinyan.) As much as Vinyan seems to get divided reactions from the few people I've spoken to that have seen it, everyone at least seems to appreciate the camera work in it. I may review it here one day, as I found myself deeply affected by the film and consider myself among it's fans. I am looking forward to seeing his work in Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void.


Fabrice du Welz pays homage to many films and filmmakers with his first effort, and speaks openly about it in the interview portion of the DVD from Palm. The name of the innkeeper, Paul Bartel, is surely a reference to the director of the same name who helmed efforts such as Private Parts and Eating Raoul. There are shots in the film that reminded me of Straw Dogs, particularly during a siege segment of the film that is amazing to behold visually. I found myself also reminded a little of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Psycho, and of course, Deliverance. But the film feels neither regurgitated nor like he's ripping off those films. He's clearly shown a distinct vision and style in Calvaire, he's taken those elements and refashioned them in his own way. If anything, he's showing the audience that he is as much a fan of those earlier works as we are. As he himself puts it in one interview, “With [Calvaire], I feel like a young painter who is surrounded by many great masters. And very simply, he paints his first piece, his first important piece. So, obviously, he references his great masters. But he tries to do it with his own personality. That is what I tried to do.” I, personally, feel like he succeeds.


I recommend this disturbing little film to any of you out there who like dark, unsettling movies about madness and survival in extreme situations. There is a very low body count to it, so those looking to see bodies littered about the screen, this one isn't for you. I think it's a great movie and was one of my favorite films of 2004. In America, it's distributed by Palm Pictures and can be found easily enough to rent on Netflix, or can be bought from Amazon and other retailers. It is in French with English subtitles, and the DVD includes a very nice “Making of...,” theatrical trailer, and previews for other Palm films. As far as I am aware, no dubbed version exists, which suits me fine.


That said, I chose to review this film, because it seems like not a lot of people have seen it here in America. I really enjoy it, and I hope that some people who might stumble onto this blog who haven't seen it will give it a chance. I really look forward to seeing what Fabrice du Welz does next.

As always, comments are welcome! =)