Pictures Gallery For A Snake of June - Rokugatsu no hebi

Rokugatsu no hebi (2002)

Also known as "A Snake of June"
Overall Score: 8 out of 10

an intriguing and ultimately inscrutable enigma

Starring: Asuka Kurasawa, Yuji Koutari, Shinya Tsukamoto, Mansaku Fuwa, Tomorowo Taguchi, Susumu Terajima

Director: Shinya Tsukamoto

Running Time: 77 minutes

US MPAA rating: N/A
UK BBFC rating: 18
Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

Strait-laced Rinko (Asuka Kurasawa) and her cleanliness-obsessed husband Shigehiko (Yuji Koutari) eat at different times, barely communicate, and sleep in separate rooms. One rainy morning in June, Rinko receives a package with an envelope marked 'Your husband's secrets', containing photographs of herself masturbating. Other photographs follow, also showing her secretly engaged in intimate acts. The photographer, Iguchi (played, appropriately, by the director Shinya Tsukamoto), calls Rinko, promising to give her the negatives, but only if she will do in public the things which he had photographed her doing in private. After the completion of this exchange, which both mortifies and arouses Rinko in equal measure, Iguchi calls again to reveal something about her which he has discovered in his photographs that is altogether more painfully intimate, something which she must share with her husband.

A stale marriage, a peeping tom, blackmail, deception, and the unlocking of hidden desires - these are all recognisable staples of the 'erotic thriller', a lowbrow softcore subgenre. Yet this seemingly straightforward material forms only the first movement of 'A Snake of June', from Rinko's perspective. Two further sections, the one from Shigehiko's point of view, and the other combining the perspectives of Rinko, Shigehiko and Iguchi, turn this narrative upside down and inside-out, until in the end it is no longer clear what is fact, what is fantasy and what is nightmare - indeed it is not even clear whether Iguchi is a real person at all. It is left to the viewer - the ultimate voyeur - to assemble these three mismatched parts into a coherent whole.

This twisted tale of looking, longing and loss has all the mannered strangeness that fans have come to expect from Shinya Tsukamoto, director/screenwriter/actor/editor of the cyberpunk classics 'Tetsuo: The Iron Man' and 'Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer', and the twin period melodrama 'Gemini'. 'A Snake of June' is literally soaked in style, with heavy rain visible and sometimes audible in every scene, underscoring the dripping lusts, teary grief and wet dreams of the three central characters. Sexuality and sadness are also evoked by the electric blue tint which suffuses Tsukamoto's black and white images, bathing everything in a beautifully cold glow.

Tsukamoto has moulded from the most basic of ingredients an intriguing and ultimately inscrutable enigma. Whether it is a through-the-keyhole peepshow, a schizophrenic thriller, an X-ray view of human pathologies, or a strange romance, there is something in the water which makes 'A Snake of June' drip with a bizarre eroticism that is no less intense for being submerged.

It's Got: Remote-controlled vibrators, men in strange masks, lots of rain, a couple drowning in their own suppressed passion, and the most sensual footage of a snail since 'Microcosmos'.

It Needs: To be seen more than once (although this may well make it seem even more bewildering).

Alternatives: 'Blow Up', 'Lost Highway', 'Fight Club'

Summary: A stylish puzzle about the intimate secrets which images contain and conceal. Overall Score: 8 out of 10