Mermaid Legend

Since Third Window started to release Directors Company films, one film in particular kept being mentioned, Toshiharu Ikeda’s Mermaid Legend (1984). The title is somewhat correct, it seemed to have an almost legendary status. In this latest set of three releases I left it to last; I was meant to see it at the cinema first but the winter virus that kept on giving, caused me to give out, so Blu-ray it was. 

In a coastal town where fisherfolk delve for their catch much like they might have for decades, the machinations of businessmen cause the death of fisherman Keisuke (Jun Eto); his wife, Migiwa (Mari Shirato) is framed for his murder and she must hide on an island until she learns the truth, and takes revenge.

Mermaid Legend is one of those films that is very hard to describe, in part for what it is not and also in part for what it is. Some define it as an exploitation film, a revenge thriller – it has aspects of the Roman Porno - Ikeda being the director of Scent of a Spell; it’s also a drama, a story of human emotions in turmoil. Much of the story is arguably relatively rote, something we’ll have seen in countless other films. So Mermaid Legend on paper has the capacity for genericism and just being a good time for what it is. What’s interesting then is that Mermaid Legend has many aspects that could be tropes has that ethereal, difficult to define something about it - which you could argue is just skilled filmmaking, as it makes the joins invisible, creates a tone without apparent effort; it ensures that whatever we see is compelling without us realising it.

Some of this is easy to define, that’s true, the soundtrack, synths and often simple piano, underscores the film beautifully. Equally director Ikeda seems to have that knack of knowing how to film a scene, and how within a moment to capture and pace it appropriately. In our bloody finale he often allows the camera to linger, to move with Migiwa, but it is capturing the scene, allowing it to unfold before us, providing an aura of violent naturalism; then he may cut, the camera suddenly moving at speed, changing our perception of events, adjusting the tone to capture a different and very necessary feel. Yet still the story is nothing new, but feels fresh and is undeniably compelling, even when nothing much seems to be happening and therein lies one of the strengths of the film, whether it's Migiwa covered in blood or her husband standing on a boat, each moment is as meaningful as the other, the early scenes are not just build up to blood, but engaging in their own right.

Mood, tone and pacing seem essential to the success of Mermaid Legend. The film breaks down fairly clearly into two halves, the first tracking Migiwa’s drama that culminates in the second part: her revenge. The two parts of the film feel very much of a whole, there’s no awkward segue. Much of this is because the core of the film is its characters, their dramas, most especially Migiwa but also Shohei (Kentaro Shimizu) and his father Miyamoto (Yoshiro Aoki). Shohei, a friend of Migiwa and her husband but also the son of the one apparently rich local, whose father is capable of immoral and illegal acts in the name of money. Shohei seems entirely clear in how his father operates and keeps his feet in both camps: lives surrounded by wealth but friends with the fisherfolk. When faced with an horrific truth, and one which cuts him emotionally to the bone, we realise the film is as much about our characters inner workings, their emotional life, as it is a revenge film. Migiwa’s eventual need for vengeance is very real and not just a reaction to power a film because of "reasons".

The moment Shohei's emotional dilemma is made plain also shows the film at its best, with Ikeda again visually representing the tone. Just after the awful truth is shown to Shohei, as we can imagine the reality sink into the man’s soul and potentially prove just who he is, we see the swimming pool from which he emerges slowly tilt, becoming vertiginous, the film visually showing us what an impossible, morally disorientated place he is in, and also making us aware of the dreadful decisions he will need to make. If this inner life matters, so does the underlying story, of a small fishing town bulldozed by money that will do anything to get its way: life, tradition, all of this mean nothing to it whatsoever. The fishing town is an altar upon which the past can be sacrificed for the future and be damned who pays the price. But of course, this story is played out through Migiwa’s drama, and that is also an intriguing one for certain ambiguities.

Does Migiwa love her husband? The man is a torrid drunk who has to be carried home. We know they argue non-stop, They do not dislike each other but are they in love?  Whereas you could argue it’s clear Shohei has more affection for Migiwa than her husband does. I feel the film allows us to make up our own mind about this, and as the story plays out this ambiguity becomes more important, as it feeds into the emotional inner dramas of Migiwa and Shohei.  

The centre of the film is Migiwa, and Mari Shirato gives quite a fearless, physically committed performance – I mean she’s often naked, bloody, and that’s not something I could do – and reminded me of Asuka Kurosawa in Shinya Tsukamoto’s A Snake of June. Both performances have a power and a difficult, physical honesty to them – I did say there are aspects of Ikeda's Roman Porno work in play here – but moreover its the emotions that you see on their faces that matter: their capacity to evoke emotion and sympathy, yet feeling real in unreal sitiuations. Shirato has a stillness to her; she can play the violent scenes but when at her most still, when her face may apparently be at rest, a mask, you can sense the emotions sitting beneath the surface.

I think it’s fair to say that Kentaro Shimizu’s performance, too, as Shohei is also excellent, because again here is a character with complicated emotions, motivations and actions, and again you can see his feelings, and often most in passing, in gestures and expressions rather than anything more overt. This extends out to everyone, the elderly couple and brothel owner who help Migiwa, each have their own nuances, and no one ever feels like a stereotype, or just an easy trope dropped in because it’s less effort than providing only a single dimension to them. One reason to exclude Mermaid Legend from the rota of exploitation films is those side characters who are less pleasant; in many genre films they are often cheaply defined as teeth gnashing, cackling bastards, but here instead are not. Even when it touches on teh fringes of such characterisation, it is done with a calmness that seems real, considering the yakuza in that moment is one that would not see Migiwa as a threat.

I’ve already said Mermaid Legend is a hard film to describe, visually Ikeda mixes it up where necessary, and it’s very well shot – intriguingly, not in widescreen but in 4:3 ratio, something that Seijun Suzuki would do years later in Pistol Opera. This creates a more claustrophobic, almost physically encompassing film. In many ways the images don’t ping off the screen so much as slide, because it’s a film where the tone of it glides past you, similar to how Migiwa dives through the sea for her catch.

At its heart Mermaid Legend is the kind of film you need to experience. Trying to wrap words around it is a poor substitute for finding out just why it has such a cult following and ferocious reputation.