The Third Murder is the latest film released in the US directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, who is one of my favorite directors. It is a psychological drama that focuses on a defense attorney as he works on a case to insure that his client does not get the death penalty for brutally murdering a man and confessing to it. He is shaken as he confronts his client and himself and discovers himself empathizing with his client.
While the visuals and the performances are still up to Koreeda’s excellent standards, I do think that by embracing an unfamiliar genre, a murder mystery, legal drama, while he stretched it to fit his style, ultimately the actual story needed work. If you are not someone who works in a job that requires you to interact with scores of people, then you may not have the same problems that I did with the film.
I am a lawyer, but I don’t practice criminal law. I can buy that even the most seasoned, slick and cynical lawyer can be shaken from his routine and behave uncharacteristically, but I never bought that he would do it for this particular client, Misumi. I believe that Koreeda thought that he made Misumi sympathetic to audiences plus he is played by an iconic, trustworthy actor, Koji Yakusho, who is best known for his work in 13 Assassins and recently made a brief, but pivotal appearance in Oh Lucy!; however there are a few details that made me land on one side of the version of events. It is possible that these features signify one thing culturally to Japanese audiences, and the meaning got lost in translation when it crossed the Pacific.
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Misumi clearly has a modus operandi. He kills exploiters then burns them. He is a vigilante. “You have to pretend to not see a lot of things to live outside.” He is also a manipulator and keen observer who reminded me of Hannibal Lecter. He waits until he gets the lead defense attorney, Shigemori, played by the fine Masaharu Fukuyama, whom I loved in Like Father, Like Son, alone, pulls the hand schtick and starts discerning personal details about him. An amateur would mistake this for kinship, but an expert would recognize a seasoned predator and tell him to run. He explicitly expresses a desire to control people. The damning fact, for me, was that he killed five birds. Fuck that guy forever. Anyone who kills animals, even if they claim that it is a mercy killing unless he or she is a vet, can’t be trusted and is just bidding their time until he or she can escalate to bigger victims. The only reason that we empathize with him is his choice of imperfect victims. Koreeda wanted to work with ambiguity, but never cultivated it within his narrative or his suspect. Recently Marshall succeeded at doing this in its depiction of a rape trial even though it was based on a real life story so we probably know what happened.
The Third Murder is disappointing because usually Koreeda’s films are understated and unpredictable. His films feel like real life and not melodramatic creative constructs whereas this film was predictable from the beginning. Also Koreeda’s films usually have more interesting female characters, but they were either some variation of the woman/girl who pulls the man into her world of trouble as he tries to save her, which is a staple in detective films, and the lawyer behaves more like a detective, or just helpers at the margins with the exception of one character. In spite of my disappointment that he failed to meet his own standards, because it is a Koreeda film, it was still better than most films that embrace similar themes and subject matter.
I was still able to put aside my certainty if I squinted and tilted my head to emphasize the themes of fathers and daughters as the real nexus point for Misumi and Shigemori. Shigemori is experiencing a bit of a midlife crisis, clearly is uncomfortable with his personal relationships and tries and fails to keep his family at arm’s length so he may be more vulnerable to a manipulator than he ordinarily would. Also there is the idea of being haunted by your legacy as a professional and a father, which is further highlighted in a scene with Shigemori and his father, who also has a professional tie to Misumi. Shigemori is not just judging his client, but wondering how he would measure up if others judged him. His impulse to save and believe his client is really an attempt by him to project what he wants for himself.
I’m still happy that I saw The Third Murder at the movie theater because I think that if I was in control of my viewing environment, I would not have noticed many stellar details that emphasize this point. When Shigemori and Misumi meet at the jail, a glass partition separates them. If I had not watched it on the big screen, I may not have noticed that as the movie continues, Koreeda almost makes it disappear. Koreeda also uses it like a mirror as the men’s faces are reflected then merge and separate. Koreeda uses the glass partition to visually echo the dialogue that reflects Shigemori’s psychological state and his relationship to Misumi. Also if I was at home, I may have adjusted the volume instead of receiving the full impact when voices are finally raised, and Shigemori no longer restrains his emotions. This scene is typical in American films, but in a Japanese film, shouting seems unusual. The oneiric scenes were a bit much for me although I think that if Guillermo del Toro decided to remake this film, he would be able to pull it off.
If Koreeda had spent more time regarding the logistics of legal work instead of emphasizing the investigation and using it as a narrative device so Shigemori could confront himself, I think that The Third Murder would have been perfect. I adored the conference in which everyone mechanically goes through the routine as if they weren’t dealing with a murder, but arranging dry logistics. The dispassionate exchanges between opposing sides depicts the reality of most legal work. Legal work is rarely dramatic by necessity because the premise is a veneer of objectivity and respectability in order to judge others. When characters begin to weigh nature versus nurture, we are venturing into Primal Fear territory and are no longer in Koreeda’s universe.
Unlike most of Koreeda’s films, The Third Murder is not a must see, but I’m happy that I saw it on opening night at the Brattle Theater. It will be there until Wednesday, August 15, 2018. Side note: the Brattle Theater played it once on Sunday, April 29, 2018, but I missed it because of technical problems that needed to be resolved in order to function daily. I thought that I missed my only shot at seeing the film so I was especially thrilled to get a second chance. It is always an honor to have the opportunity to see any of Koreeda’s films on the big screen. Even if it was not one of his best, I owe him so much more than I could ever repay.