1997 Movie
Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa · Japan · Japanese
A series of mysterious murders leads a detective to a former psychological student
Cure is about a mad society, where both cure and sickness might be one and the same. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa subverts the police procedural into an interrogation without definite answers, an abstract study on the evil that resides and is suppressed in every person’s heart. Unlike most horror films, Cure’s scares are left in plain sight, hypnotically mesmerizing as they are gruesome, with a sense of mundanity associated with other Japanese masters like Ozu or Kore-eda. “At the time it just seemed the right thing to do,” a man answers when asked why he killed his wife, and it is this contradictorily calm, nonchalant demeanor that creates a feeling of unease in the film’s horror aesthetic.
A frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done.
"an increasingly hallucinatory piece where murderousness is a disease spreading rapidly through the susceptible Japanese psyche."
— Anton Bitel
"Tone and atmosphere mirror subject to perfection in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's hypnotic trip into the lower depths of the human mind."
— David Rooney
Gerald Cajayon is a writer and emerging film critic who contributes reviews and recommendations to A Good Movie to Watch. He has participated in the Sinalang Film Festival, exploring alternative modes of film spectatorship.
10/10 underrated gem