‘Cure’: Permission to Lose Your Mind
You are an average person living in an average city. You live in a normal apartment. You work a normal 9-to-5 job. You file paperwork. You sit in front of a computer for hours on end at the same bland desk. On your way back from work you meet a mysterious fellow who forgot his name and doesn’t seem to know where he is. Concerned, you take him home. He talks with you in loops, as he seems to keep forgetting. You don’t remember when, but he leaves. The next morning, you keep seeing “X”s for some reason. In the newspaper. In the pattern of your wallpaper, in your cereal. You go to work, you go to the restroom. A coworker walks in. Without a second thought, you stab him to death with the knife you brought from your kitchen, and carve a massive “X” into his torso.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure (1997) is a film that at times feels genuinely evil. A product made by either a psychopath himself, or by an absolute master of the medium of film. Kurosawa is the latter.
We begin with what seems to be a typical murder-mystery story. A body is found with a massive “X” carved into the neck. However, instead of diving into the depths of the city to find the murderer, they instead find him just down the hall in a service closet, naked and crying. The case is further muddled when more murders happen in the exact same fashion, but each time by a different perpetrator with no connections between them.
What makes Cure so horrifying is that everyone is the monster. Your spouse, friends and family all have the capability to snap at the turn of a switch. As lead investigator Takabe (portrayed expertly by Kōji Yakusho of Babel fame) dives deeper and beings displaying psychological torment, so to does the film itself, becoming more and more surreal and erratic in its editing and sound design. Takabe further strays off the edge as he deals with his emotionally unstable wife Fumie (Anna Nakagawa), with further fuel added by the exhaustion and confusion of the case. The real world terror of failing a relationship is blended expertly with the more surreal elements of the film, touted by Kurosawa’s marksman-like direction.
Eventually, the investigation begins to shift towards a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara), who appeared at a crime scene. The university student appears to suffer from an extreme case of short term memory loss, often forgetting sentences just after saying them, leading to an endless loop of conversation. Mamiya is complete unexplainable by the police, who’s bored and carefree aura point towards to the opposite of horror. Then he starts talking. Using the environment he is in, conversational loops, and items at his disposal, he flips the switch on who he’s talking to.
Mamiya is so horrifying because of his plain indifference to the world. His point of view that everyone is holding in seething emotional turmoil ready to explode at any moment can’t be explained as anything else but the truth. Mamiya merely sees giving individuals permission to act. A killer that never kills.
Cure is almost too disquieting and uncomfortable to be a horror film. The movie simply radiates an atmosphere of evil. As the film progresses to try and understand evil, the more evil it becomes. Tokyo appears as a dystopian nightmare, plagued by unnerving, filthy spaces. A glass of water becomes the most horrifying thing you see. And for Takabe, he continuously sees visions of his wife dying, visions that become indistinguishable from reality.
Kurosawa refuses to hold punches. He appears to understand the emotional turmoil of the youth of his time. Cure acts as a manifesto of sorts, examining the viral social disorder and emptiness of Japan at this stage in history. The film reminds viewers of repressed anxieties, stored deep in their minds, slowly suffocating them. The only cure is acceptance.
