I am a big fan of the films of Sono Sion （園子温）. All of his films that I’ve seen have stuck with me in some way, which is more than can be said for 99% of the other films and television shows out there. With films like Suicide Club, Noriko’s Dinner Table, and Love Exposure, his work over the last decade is as good as any other filmmaker’s in the world. His recent film, Guilty of Romance, is also one of his darkest to date.
I will be reviewing the 113 minute international cut of Guilty of Romance（恋の罪）. There exists a 144 minute cut made for the Japanese market that I wish to see, as the international cut excises an entire plot line centered around the detective (Mizuno Miki, 水野美紀, Hard Revenge Milly) who is investigating the crimes this film revolves around.
The Film
A crime scene. Two bodies discovered, posed along with mannequin parts and mannequin faces. Pink paint is everywhere. Written on the wall is a single word. What is the meaning behind all of this?
Guilty of Romance is the story of insomniac housewife Kikuchi Izumi (Kagurazaka Megumi, 神楽坂恵, Cold Fish) and her descent into a world more depraved and primal than she can imagine. Fearing that his newlywed wife is bored and unhappy sitting alone at home all day while waiting for him to get home (which she is), author Kikuchi Yukio (Tsuda Kanji, 津田寛治) suggests she get a part-time job at the local supermarket.
At work she’s approached by a talent manager who wants Izumi to pose for some potentially risqué photos. Reluctant at first, she agrees to go to the photo shoot. Things get a lot more steamy than she expects, and here begins Izumi’s moral descent and sexual awakening.
This new-found sexual power makes Izumi more adventurous, and leads her to more depraved encounters. One of these disturbing encounters is with a gentleman (Kobayashi Ryuju, 竜樹) who looks like he has seen A Clockwork Orange one too many times. From this meeting, Izumi comes into contact with Ozawa Mitsuko (Togashi Makoto, 冨樫真), an older woman with many dark secrets. As two women both leading dual lives they soon befriend each other, and the veteran Mitsuko begins teaching Izumi how to be like her. Meanwhile, the murder mystery continues to unfold.
Thoughts
Words have no meaning. To have meaning, a word must be made flesh. A word’s meaning is its body.
Like his previous effort, Cold Fish, Sono has again made a film about how far down into the depths of depravity mankind can go. One of my favorite things about Sono is his ability to blend drama, comedy, horror, and anything else he wants to into his narrative, and to somehow make it all work. Guilty of Romance is surprisingly devoid of any trace of the black humor that peppers his earlier works. This one is all darkness. But that doesn’t mean that it is any less of a film.
Kagurazaka Megumi turns in a good performance as Izumi, transforming from repressed to sexually empowered to incredibly deviant throughout the course of the story. The standout performance of the movie is that of Togashi Makoto as the deranged Mitsuko. Behind her warm smile and respectable day job is the desire to bring everyone she meets down to her level. And Togashi is excellent at making you believe that she’s being kind every step of the way while she is slowly destroying you.
Sono is my favorite horror director, even when the films he makes aren’t all technically horror films. Horror isn’t my favorite genre, as the typical fare doesn’t put much fright into me. Sono, however, is a genius at scaring the bejeebus out of me. His horror isn’t blood and guts and surprises and sharp noises. His horror is family. The dysfunctional family scenes he creates seem more real than any supernatural monsters or ghosts that are made up (not that my family is horrible, quite the opposite). In Guilty of Romance he treats us to another standout family scene, which I won’t spoil here. I’ll just say that I won’t ever think of having tea with the family the same again.
The concept of prostitution and the value of your own body is the main thread throughout this film. Sono doesn’t condemn the act, nor does he glamorize it. What he does do is show it in the most brutal of fashions. Being a film about murder and sex, there is plenty of graphic violence and sexual content. There are scenes that can be considered rape, but for a story like this one they are essential to the progression of certain character’s story arcs. A thought-provoking point is made in this film regarding prostitution. If a random man approached a woman and propositioned her for sex, what would be more disheartening to the human spirit: if she had sex with the man for free, or if she asked for money? Which would be looked down upon more in our society?
The music gets more and more intense as the film nears the climax. At one point the only musical accompaniment is the endless beating of a war drum, leading everyone into battle. This all leads into some very insane and intense revelations as the story comes to a close and all the loose ends are tied up.
The events that occur in the film are truly dark and represent some of the lowest levels of humanity. But despite that, I found at the end that it was more a story of survival than anything else. Many references are made throughout the film to Kafka’s unfinished novel The Castle, a story representing a quest to find something, to get somewhere, that you can never attain or reach. Both Izumi and Mitsuko are looking for their Castle, even if they know they will never get there. But so is most everyone else in this world. How we deal with that knowledge is what defines us.
I really would have liked to see the longer Japanese cut of the movie. I want to see how well Sono fits (or doesn’t fit) Mizuno Miki’s character arc alongside the stories of Izumi and Mitsuko, as their two storylines contrasted each other very well. It’s not his best film (Love Exposure and Noriko’s Dinner Table are my favorites), nor is it his most disturbing (the award for that goes to Strange Circus). Still, I found this to be another fine effort from Sono.
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