It
is considered tacky to speak ill of the dead, but Tanaka is a journalist, so
all bets are off. Still, you would expect him to write a traditional innocent victimhood
narrative when investigating the cold case murder of an affluent couple and
their young daughter. However, what he uncovers regarding their arrogance and
abuse of privilege completely upends established movie conventions in Kei
Ishikawa’s Traces of Sin (trailer here), which screens
during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.
Things
are not going well for Tanaka. His sister Mitsuko is in prison facing child
endangerment charges, while her emaciated three-year-old daughter slowly slips
away on life-support. It is easy to hate Mitsuko, but Tanaka understands only
too well how much abuse she suffered at their parents’ hands. That is why the
backstories of Hiruki and Yukie Takou will trouble him so deeply.
Initially,
he started re-investigating the Takou murders as a Quixotic distraction from
his family issues. However, he soon learns how Takou and his boorish company
mates would deliberately toy with new female recruits. Digging a little deeper,
he finds he and his future wife were even crueler and more manipulative during their
college years. Junko Miyamura is particularly eager to dish, because she
yearned for acceptance among the unofficial “Insiders,” but never quite made
it.
Traces is very definitely
a murder mystery, but it is also an exploration of the dark side of human
nature and the psychological triggers that cause the abused to become abusers. It
is murky, pessimistic stuff, but absolutely riveting to watch unfold. Kosuke
Mukai’s adapted screenplay gives us a sense Tokuro Nukui’s source novel shares
some affinities with Gone Girl and
the like. For one thing, there certainly seems to space for some unreliable
narration.
Hikari
Mitsushima might be one of the most accomplished but under-rated thesps in the
world based on her knock-out work in Love Exposure and the thoroughly charming Hello! Junichi. As Mitsuko, she is frightfully vulnerable and pitiable yet
simultaneously chilling to the bone. It is a quiet, tightly coiled performance
that profoundly surprises many times over. Satoshi Tsumabuki is even more
reserved, but he still conveys all the emotions roiling within Tanaka’s chest
and the wheels turning inside his head. Asami Usuda’s Miyamura also makes a
spectacular ice queen, to use a polite term.