Suspect X (容疑者Xの献身)

It has been a matter of some deliberation as to what movie to use for my first review, but Suspect X (容疑者Xの献身) eventually emerged victorious, not in the least because it is a movie so unfamiliar to audiences outside of Japan, and yet so unexpectedly good that it would have felt wrong not to try, as best I can, to shine even the smallest of spotlights on it. Indeed it was born more as a movie intended for the mass market, but the resulting product is a living testament that the tried, old conventions of the detective genre can still, in the right hands, produce a fresh and engaging work of art.

Just to avoid any subsequent lambasting, I would like to make it clear that the following writing contains spoilers. This is not the Sunday morning review you read in the paper. It’s a critical analysis of sorts, a dissection of the movie and as such it deals with the most important elements that help shape the movie. If I think a scene, a gesture, or a prop is relevant it might be present here. Indeed, most of the plot is followed as I more or less chronologically pass through the movie. The reason this article is so in-depth is partly to balance all the lack of reviews out there and not just because I have no life. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and if for some strange reason my opinion holds some value to you, then be content with the perfect score I gave it and go see it. If you still agree with my score afterwards and want to see what on earth I could have filled all this space with then please return to see what I do with my free time and maybe even leave a comment to make me feel like I’m wanted and loved. Thank you.

Released in 2008 in Japan, the movie is based on the novel with the same name by Keigo Higashino. It presents itself as a side story, or better, an alternative to the popular Japanese drama series Galileo: one need not have seen the series to understand the movie. Reprising their roles are Kou Shibasaki (from Isao Yukisada’s GO) as detective Kaoru Utsumi and Masaharu Fukuyama as professor Manabu Yukawa (note: manabu also means to study). In true Japanese fashion, like any pop-culture movie that respects itself, the two actors also share credits for performing the ending song. That’s not to say that I didn’t like the song. I really did.

Yasushi Fukuda pens the movie and it is noteworthy that he also wrote the series. I mention this because to me it serves as another example of how medium affects the creative output of the artist. The series is pretty standard fare, in high contrast to the intricacies of the film. Indeed the movie feels very self aware of its liberation from the confines of television. In the drama series, whenever Galileo uncovers the missing link to the puzzle, a catchy, vivacious musical motif accompanies a camera that revolves around him as he writes random, and quite frankly unnecessary formulas, on whatever is solid enough to hold ink. The passage ends with an identifiable pose of him bracing his glasses - such a narrative device is presumably cool and undoubtedly the reason for its use, but quite devoid of necessity and artistic value. The movie never falls prey to such cheap shortcuts.

This is the kind of movie that has undergone careful planning and scrutiny. Nothing seems unnecessary, or out of place and subtle touches can be seen everywhere. It can in some ways be considered even perverse because it so slyly disguises itself as your average summer thriller, or drama, maximizing the effect of its underlying complexity as well as its unexpected narrative surprises.

After a quick prologue, seething with light hearted comedy, introducing the characters as we remembered them form the drama, the story segues through the mediating credits into a scene stimulating through its ambivalence. The camera pans slowly through a dark room filled with books. We know we are in the world of a genius, the image is self-explanatory. But contrasting this world are the noises that can be heard from next door and one might be inclined to believe, as I was, that they are the product of a disrupting force to this man of science. Only on a second viewing perhaps do we understand that it is happiness and not annoyance to which he wakes up each morning. As he leaves the apartment we might notice him repositioning a fallen toy bird among some flowers. It’s a minor detail, but a subtle recurring element in the movie. We then follow Ishigami on his walk to work. The passage might feel longer than it needs, but that’s because it is required to give us an impression of the monotony of the character’s life. The world is colorless, the settings poor and shabby, a scenic double of the slouching professor; the soundtrack too is devoid of any music, filled only with the tiring sound of a city. From this world he escapes by entering a small shop and note how the palette changes completely to warm colors. Not many movies today pay such attention on mood suggested through unconsciously perceived elements. The visual characterization is also admirable. Ishigami, lacking confidence, hides behind a scarf and when finally he works up the courage to speak, the vibrant voice of an eager customer suddenly violates the still fragile social space he created, and he quickly reverts back to his introverted world. As he slowly leaves the shop he bumps into somebody that then mysteriously loiters around the shop. Cut to Yasuko Hanaoka’s (played by Yasuko Matsuyuki from Hula Girls) home where moments later the man reappears, being identified as her former husband. Unexpectedly this unwanted meeting escalates into a struggle ending in the man’s death. As he is strangled the camera insists for a few moments on the picture of the mother and daughter - at what might be the store’s opening ceremony (symbolic of a new life away from the man that oppressed them for so long) - falling down. In killing him perhaps they’ve only strengthened his earlier words as he came into the house, specifically that they would never be free of him. These traditional conventions of reinforcing ideas or anticipating story elements are everywhere in the movie, effective and well balanced: Earlier I noted how Ishigami bumps into the man foretelling conflict mere moments before he breaks into Yasuko’s house. The chord with which he is strangled is shown when the victim turns on the kotatsu. The movie is fluid, dynamic and concise.

But insisting on technique alone would not do the movie justice. Cohesiveness by itself cannot make a movie great. It is in the characterization of Ishigami, that the movie hits its stride. He is played by Shin’ichi Tsutsumi, best known perhaps for his role as the energetic and colorful Suzuki Norifumi from Always Sunset on Third Street. If he was responsible for the adrenaline rush of the latter movie, he is almost unrecognizable here in his sullen state, calm, dispassionate, coldly rational. He is one of my favorite contemporary Japanese actors and this movie only helps reassert his thespian prowess by revealing his versatility. In 2008 he received 2 nominations by the Japanese Academy - lead actor in The Climbers High and supporting actor in Suspect X. I consider that somewhat misleading though – he supports the weight of this entire movie, which makes him the lead character to me. And if a more obvious cue is desired, look no further than the title. But why is he such a central figure to the movie? Because his persona is key in our manipulation as viewers. The aforementioned calm demeanor is ubiquitous in the movie and invests the character with mystery. Because his expression reflects nothing of the way he perceives the world around him, we assign him emotions based on the overall feeling of a scene. The director knows this and uses it superbly several times as we will later see.

The first traces of his perfectly calculated and balanced nature can be seen as early as the murder scene. Without any perceivable hue in his voice he asks a distraught Yasuko if everything is alright to which she clumsily replies that it’s just a cockroach. “Did you kill him?” he unflinchingly continues studying her fragile reactions. “The cockroach…” he diffuses his equivocal, unsettling question. She tries closing the door, but he remains in front of it, motionless. She has nowhere else to turn to, but to the outside world. Her house is a dead end, a prison she doesn’t know how to escape from by herself. He knows this, so he waits for her to invite him in.

It is at this point that the investigation starts. Yukawa himself becomes involved in the case only when he finds out that his old university friend, Ishigami, is the neighbour to this “beautiful” suspect. He doesn’t use the term “genius” lightly it would seem, but Ishigami is in his opinion one. Here is where the movie again surprises me in its subtle details. Walking Ishigami to work one morning, Yukawa retraces the path the professor generally takes. As they leave the apartment we might notice that Ishigami doesn’t reposition the fallen toy bird as is his general routine because he realizes that this would be a sign of affection that could be read by a keen observer. Just as one would arrange a loved one’s collar, or scarf, he sets the bird among the flowers each morning. Physical contact or even proximity with the person he loves is not possible throughout the movie until the very end, but several devices are employed as intermediaries. Another one is the phone conversations they have. Here the director insists on placing them in front of each other despite the spatial dislocation. The choice also restates again the thematic differences of their respective worlds. Soft and warm lighting on her side contrasts the dry, cold colors that accompany Ishigami. But as just mentioned, simply creating a parallel between their worlds wasn’t the only reason the technique was employed. If so, the director might have maintained the format when he also talks to Misato on the phone – at one point this is moments after conversing with the mother, so it would have been a natural continuation of the technique. The purpose however is in bringing them together while at the same time elegantly interposing a wall between them in the form of the delimiting line.

Now as the two pass through the aforementioned slums, consider the striking similarities with the beginning of the movie. There is perfect symmetry in the mise-en-scene. What’s new is the chorus represented by Yukawa and Ishigami which comment on what they see. Ishigami remarks how the scenery never changes, how their lives are like clockwork. Indeed one of the homeless people even bashes a brick methodically, like a metronome. Another carrying a wash-bowl seems to be re-enacting the exact same walk. All that’s changed is the size of the pile of cans seen next to the former – the only proof that time itself did not stop in this microcosm. Even the camera is subject to the laws of repetition: It descends from the same high position above the confining walls and keeping to its exact motion pattern as the same time around, it allows for the creation of a beautifully integrated hint: it emphatically pauses over the bench: the bag is still there as it was at the beginning of the film, but the bench is empty. The clock has been deprived of one of its cogs, and Hiroshi Nishitani displays subtle originality in employing this omniscient technique to give the tenacious viewer an edge to Yukawa’s own investigation. He is a director unfamiliar to me, but one that promises quite a lot. I most certainly am waiting for his next movie.

Earlier I pointed out how Ishigami is almost infallible in his intelligence, but the next moments reveal that he cannot conceal his mistakes forever, because they are mistakes of the heart and not of the mind; indeed one seems unable to overrule the other, and the first one surfaces as he asks Yukawa how he stays so young. Ishigami is human, but he hides it well. Most movies take pride in flaunting complex characters by revealing them in extreme states. This movie reverses it by showing him immutable to any extreme state. But as I mentioned before, his unalterable expression is the perfect catalyst for viewer manipulation. Let us now quickly analyse how the director shapes in our minds a stereotypical lonely genius, convincing us that the movie will take a familiar direction, one easily identifiable as we browse our catalogue of psychological dramas. As Yukawa and Ishigami buy lunch at Yasuko’s shop an old gentleman is suddenly introduced in the story. This happens about half-way through the movie, and drawing on a priori knowledge of genre conventions we identify him as a force threatening the imagined plot progression, the unexpected variable in Ishigami’s plan. Musical cues emphasize his entrance and our opinions are strengthened by the way in which the scene is treated. Ishigami’s cold, analytical expression is captured in a cluttered composition, as a reflection in a small mirror at the shop – his image is distorted, he takes the role of a villain, an unwanted watcher. Time and time again the director employs manipulation techniques to suggest a mind on the verge of collapsing: Ishigami will continue to stalk the two, write threat letters we might believe to be his true feelings. As he sees her being brought home by him one night, his menacing presence at the top of the stairs is enhanced by the sound of rain itself disappearing as she notices him there. It’s a subjective, distorting sound perspective. Even a thunder is synchronized to her reactions. There’s nothing in his attitude itself to suggest aggressiveness, but reality has been transposed. The camera lingers for a while on her half scared, half guilt ridden expression and then cuts to an angle of the stairs again. Like an avenging ghost he’s disappeared. No trace, no sound. As for her, she’s left under her red umbrella, the only speck of colour in this bleak scene. When Yukawa calls him to go climbing together later in the movie, threatening music escalates again as the camera tracks to reveal behind Ishigami a pickaxe on his bed. The movie then abruptly cuts to full white, to the tranquillity of a mountain. This brusque editing is not an accident, not in a flawlessly edited motion picture. It is only another hint that the film invites us to discern from what’s real and what’s not. The director is telling us that we shouldn’t assume the narration to be completely earnest, the camera an objective, undistorted lens. The old gentleman introduced earlier thus does not become an unbalancing factor, but a carefully planned functional character that serves to better define our protagonist. Ishigami is a character sculpted by a dextrous hand indeed.

To linger a little longer on the gentleman, I would like to point out that he is also invested with a secondary purpose: he also serves as a transitional element to the second half of the movie and being introduced at this crucial moment his importance is overstated, multiplying the effect when his role is succinctly defused later on. The two halves of the film are actually summarised best by Yukawa: “Which is harder” he asks. “Creating an unsolvable problem, or finally solving one.” The first section of the film is the one in which Ishigami proposes his code. The second part sees Yukawa trying to break it. In this crucial scene in the movie the characters are separated by rows of passing cars, the two friends each on one side of the street. The weight of the question posed by Yukawa can be felt between them. “I’ll think about it” Ishigami replies as they say goodbye. Turning and walking away from each other, their presence is so important that time itself freezes through the use of slow motion and space itself expands through the use of a small focal distance. They’re titans in our minds.

There is another episode I’d like to draw attention to. It is the one in the mountain hut. Ishigami asks why Yukawa doesn’t expose his theory to the police, to which he answers: “Because you are my friend.” Ishigami stares blankly at the fire. He is positioned to the left of the screen in a good example of efficient wide screen use. To the right of him, the remaining empty space of the frame signifies loneliness. Counterpointing his static posture are the flames, flickering on and off, reflected on his pensive, slightly sad expression. “For me there are no friends” his line roughly translates. It’s a masterfully delivered line, the moment where Shin’ichi Tsutsumi embodies his character best.

Let us now advance to the moment Ishigami turns himself in. A beautiful example of continuity can be seen in the prison scene. It begins with his letter explaining his true noble intentions being read by Yasuko. It is a voice over and the voice is his. A choir of carol singers provide the musical background and they attribute purity to his words, a long overdue statement and apology to the man we thought completely overtaken by destructive jealousy. We then see him lying on the prison floor. The 4-color theorem, another recurring motif, springs to life as Ishigami uses inconsistencies in the texture of the ceiling as vertices that generate lines and then fills them in with vibrant colors. An orchestral version of “Beloved” (the credits song) starts playing as we are taken back into the past, to the first scene in the story – the moment Yukawa and Ishigami met. From this shared memory we now flow smoothly to Yukawa, also filmed at a low angle as if he himself has been transported to the prison floor, sharing in his friend’s emotions; their images overlap. It’s an earnestly warm scene. From here the camera eventually fades back to his lab as Utsumi makes her entrance. Again the director displays his complete disregard for the safe zone of a filmed image, using the wide-screen format to the fullest in order to communicate ideas. In this case, a great distance between the characters, and a lost Yukawa. We might not even notice his presence in this long shot if he were not to finally move after being called. Before this he was one with his surroundings, hidden in the dark as just another inanimate accessory in his lab. Here he is most like Ishigami. Paralleling these two characters is one of the strong points of the movie. One constantly asks how two equal minds who started off on the same bench have ended in such distinct places. Yukawa himself considers at the end of the movie the alternative route Ishigami’s life might have taken.

The end of the film pits the two in a final confrontation where Yukawa, the detective, finally rearranges the information and gives us the definitive solution to the mystery. Ishigami slouches while Yukawa sits straight. A perfect side view of the two emphasizes this. Ishigami is broken and defeated. He seems nothing like Yukawa. It’s as if in his dim voice he is screaming “Everything I could have been, everything you are, I lost it all. But at least I lost it for love.” As Yukawa posits his theory we finally see the extent of Ishigami’s passion. He refuses to explain himself though, and why should he? This is who he is, to make him open up even to the only person who truly understands him is to deny him his carefully crafted personality. He has never been good at expressing emotions, that’s what got him to this point. The end of the scene finds them framed back to back: Yukawa sitting but closer to the camera, Ishigami standing but farther behind so that they are almost identical in height. The lamenting Yukawa says almost to himself: “What a shame that such a beautiful mind had to be used for such a thing”. “You are the only one who would say something (as kind) as this” Ishigami replies in his most defenceless moment until now. And so the door is shut on Yukawa as if he is the one left confined. Walking among guards dressed in black, Ishigami appears as an angel of sorts in his white shirt. Rays of light cover him and he walks with a smile. He’s hands are tied but his heart is free. In a flashback he sets the noose around his neck, in the present he’s just taking a stroll. For once the genius physicist is at a loss. He’s solved the puzzle, but he doesn’t understand it. A lesser movie would have been content with just the crime mystery, but here’s a movie proposing a psychological one as well, and it’s not a bad one. It reminds us of the importance of those small details that we so often take for granted, it reminds us how kindness and vitality can be so contagious. Ishigami understands this and to him his noisy neighbours playing video games is more life asserting than anything else. He’s not in love with Yasuko for her good looks, or other irrelevant reason; he’s in love with her because she keeps him alive through her smile whenever he buys lunch at her shop.

The movie asks the well known question “Would you kill for love?” but its answer is delightfully engaging. The mother and daughter kill as an accident brought about by fear and a long history of suffering caused by the victim. Ishigami kills dispassionately to protect the object of his passion. None of these intentions are evil, but the cumulated result of them is undoubtedly a crime. And there are no cries of joy to greet them at the end, no greater narrative force descends to save them. All that’s left is tears as Ishigami finally breaks down, at the site of Yasuko's unexpected show of repentance and gratitude. If he didn’t foresee one thing and one alone in his carefully constructed plan, it was perhaps that she would grow to care for him. He never thought himself worthy to begin with. Having caught a glimpse of Ishigami’s thoughts we have been given a more complete answer than Yukawa to this mathematician’s personality, but it is not a definitive one. I wondered as Ishigami was dragged kicking and screaming as to the true reasons that brought about the disintegration of his perfect mental equilibrium. Was it simply that he saw his whole work undone or was it indeed beauty that finally killed this beast?

When all is said and done, Suspect X is a rare viewing experience, a movie truly hard to make precisely because of its ostensible simplicity. At first I hesitated if it was truly a great movie or not, but I quickly found myself wondering when was the last time that I saw a film so intelligently layered that it can truly adapt to almost any viewer. How much one gets out of it is truly a matter of how much one brings into it. It’s good as a mystery film, it’s good as a psychological drama, but it’s simply great seen as both.

Rating: 5/5

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There is undoubtedly a lot more to be said about the movie, but an exhaustive analysis was not quite my purpose. Nor do I have the time for it right now. I wanted above all to open a conversation and tempt you with the multitude of meanings you can find in the movie. Even more, I wanted to show the healthy condition of Japanese cinema, especially at a time when overseas Oscars are being given to movies like Slumdog Millionaire. Speaking of the Oscars, “Okuribito” is another great Japanese movie that took the Academy Award for best foreign film in America this year, and also took the prize away from fellow nominee Suspect X in Japan. It was a hard call. Perhaps I’ll do a review on it as well… a much shorter one.