Takashi Ishii 4 Tales of Nami Review 3 - A Night in Nude

Welcome one and all to the third film in the upcoming Third Window presentation of the Takashi Ishii 4 Tales of Nami boxset, the salaciously titled: A Night in Nude. 

Good to once again get teeth into a set that, as I would find out, throws up some intriguing titles where Nami would again appear in a new guise, as a new person, as would Muraki, even if not obviously for some time. 

Stand-in for hire, Jiro (Naoto Takenaka), wakes to find Nami (Kimiko Yo) wanting to hire him. Not to attend a funeral or be a guest at a wedding but to guide her around Tokyo. Little does Jiro realise that Nami is on the run from her abusive yakuza boyfriend, Kozo (Jinpachi Nezu), and his psychopathic partner, Sendo (Kippei Shina). 

Unusually, compared to the first two films I reviewed in the set, the film focuses on Jiro as it unfolds. Nami is the crux of the story, but Jiro is the character that for the most part that we follow. It arguably makes the most sense for the narrative, as it is not one that follows a night as the title may suggest, but instead one that works as a series of scenes that often function to really draw out our characters, most especially Jiro.

Like the previous films reviewed, A Night in Nude seems to focus most on its characters, and often, once again, ambiguously. When we first meet Nami she’s giving money to her boyfriend, Kozo, and has to offer herself up for sex. The relationship seems to be one of blackmail, but it’s never fully explicated. Arguably, this runs throughout, even when we are told by Nami what their past is, I still felt it seemed unclear, as if we're hearing part of a story since Nami rarely tells the truth.

When we first meet Sendo - violent, unpredictable Sendo - Kozo suggests that he's gay and as the film progresses this becomes uncertain. While he is Kozo's business partner in crime, he acts more like a jealous lover.

Nami is, to an extent, pushed to the background, though we see her desire for a normal life, one that is crushed, smashed like a bouquet of roses upon a jilted lover, and she is somewhat unknowable in the film, like the best femme fatales often are though with more sympathy than many are allowed. Like the characters in Angel Guts: Red Flash you feel that it was past trauma that landed her where she is - troubled, trying to escape but ultimately trapped. Most of our characters feel trapped, lost, trying to find a release and this is where the heart of the film comes in: Jiro.  

His world is shit. Literally. He tells Nami this early on. Though we first see him alone, attending a funeral for those too lazy or uncaring to do so, we find out that much of his stand-in works is little more than walking dogs and cleaning up their shit. What could seem intriguing, almost cutesy is brought viciously down to earth – and Nami’s impact on his life is initially no different, and if anything brings him into the worst shit of all. Yet through Nami, Jiro is able to find a way to distance himself from his past and look to his future, for all his frustrations and all the violence perpetrated against him. 

There’s a lovely strand of absurdism in parts of the film., such as Jiro lugging a stinking suitcase, dry ice dissolving and chasing Nami through the Tokyo subway. It undercuts some of the violence and nihilistic elements that pervade the film, because like the other films reviewed in this set it quietly lays bare the depressing inhumanity of the yakuza and those whose lives intersect them. A repeated vignette of a bank official who has loaned them money illegally and the impact on him, speaks volumes despite how little is shown. Because this happens in passing makes it more meaningful. Equally Sendo and Kozo seem never to be happy, or even successful; Sendo especially reminded me of teenage boys at bus stops who pretend fight with each other, trying to show off their virility, partly unaware of their violence, partly aware of their aggression and ultimately deeply pathetic and very sad. As we delve deeper into Tokyo, Jiro looking for a gun, we see this again; society and emotions laid bare and always with nuance and return to character and motivation that most films like this would not touch, preferring broad strokes. Instead, Ishii as writer and director pulls it back and always grounds the film in his human characters. 

For a narrative that focusses on vignettes you can argue the film is a little longer than it needs to be, for vignettes make it harder to draw in the attention of the viewer, yet for 110-minutes there are few missteps. Again, there is that sense of intimacy within the film and visually it is engaging. Some of this is down to the design: having a neon sculpture in Jiro’s bedroom made me very jealous.  

While A Night in Nude might have been better as a slightly tighter 90-minute narrative, it again shows us Ishii taking a story and quietly subverting it, adjusting it, tweaking it so that’s never quite what you think it will be. Arguably the fact that Nami is sidelined a little for a story about Nami could be problematic, but it does allow Naoto Takenaka as Jiro to shine. He has a softness of voice that belies his character’s determination to do what he thinks is right, regardless of the law, and sometimes perhaps of personal sanity and physical safety. Actually the character of Jiro, and Naoto Takenaka’s performance, probably make the film, always grounding it in a person we can understand, sympathise with even when his decisions may not be the wisest they make sense in the context of who he is and of where his character has found himself. 

A Night in Nude, like the first two films in the boxset, is unique. The collection never retells the same story, the only theme being the same emotional and morally murky world. This feels like something of a revelation, so roll on the final film (if the first chronologically Ishii directed) in the set: Original Sin.