Tomie
Is it perhaps a kindness that Tsukiko Izumisawa has no memory of the worst event of her life, the accident in which her parents died and left her with amnesia, three years later trying to recover some of the missing time with the aid of hypnotherapist Doctor Hosono while remaining oblivious to the blind spots in her present, her aspiring musician boyfriend Yuichi Saiga cheating on her with her fellow art school student and model Kaori.
Yet the past Tsukiko believes is false, Doctor Hosono approached by Detective Shoji Harada of the Gifu Prefecture who tells her that Tsukiko was witness to the murder of her best friend Tomie Kawakami by her then-boyfriend Tanabe Koji who became obsessed with the other girl, both names Tsukiko has said in her sessions, Harada believing this was the most recent in a long series of violent deaths of many girls named Tomie Kawakami.
Inspired by the horror manga created by Junji Ito launched in 1987 and the first in a series of nine films featuring the titular character, Tomie (富江) was originally released in Japan in October 1998, adapted and directed by Ataru Oikawa, starring Mami Nakamura as Tsukiko, Yoriko Dōguchi as Doctor Hosono, Kôta Kusano as Yuichi, Rumi as Kaori and Miho Kanno as the embodiment of Tomie.
An immortal woman who reincarnates herself, growing from monstrous (unseen) baby to child to adult in a matter of weeks to seek vengeance on those who wronged her in her past incarnation, Tsukiko’s amnesia conveniently erasing her cruelty towards her former friend, this may be Tomie’s story but it is told entirely by others, principally Detective Harada (Tomorowo Taguchi) who presents the case history in a dump of clumsy exposition which deflates any burgeoning mystery.
Doctor Hosono understandably unconvinced by the theories of the unkempt, twitchy, chain-smoking police officer who apparently operates without any support from his department, it is then for the rest of the characters to catch up with what the viewer already knows, while by coincidence and unknown to Tsukiko in the apartment below her own one-eyed escaped mental patient Kenichi Yamamoto (Kenji Mizuhashi) raises the demanding infant Tomie.
Shot and edited with bland indifference to atmosphere with almost subliminal shots of lurid creepiness akin to the abstract images of Argento punctuating the tedious scenes of Tsukiko on her bicycle or antics in the kitchen at the Sesame House where Yuichi avoids work, Tomie borders on incoherent, eventually culminating in flashbacks to blood-soaked schoolgirls and incongruous breathy J-pop fluff over the end credits but always less than the sum of its unimaginative body parts.
Tomie will be streaming on the Arrow platform from Monday 18th November
