Rent The Eel (1997)

Slippery When Wet - The Eel review by griggs

Imamura’s Palme d’Or co-winner had been on my list long enough for expectation to do its usual damage. I wanted something cold and relentless. What I got was slippier than that — a film that shifts tone so often it never quite settles into the shape you think it’s taking.

There’s plenty to admire. Koji Yakusho is quietly magnetic, and the central idea — man bonds with eel, struggles to bond with people — works far better than it sounds. The opening scene, too, hits with real force, promising something stark and unsparing. The trouble is that the film keeps swerving away from that promise, drifting between deadpan, melodrama and odd comedy without ever making the lurching feel fully earned.

The ending comes in a burst of chaos that will either feel cathartic or leave you wondering what, exactly, Imamura thought he was resolving. Worth seeing, mind. Just not quite the film it had the nerve to begin as.