Gemini - Review
The Film: 4 stars
Shinya Tsukamoto is best-known to the world for Tetsuo, The Iron Man, a nightmarish collision of flesh and metal that manages to out-Eraserhead Eraserhead. He followed it up with a string of similarly punk-rock, body-horror pictures, before radically changing pace with Gemini, premiering at the Venice Film Festival in 1999. Gemini, taking place not in a nightmarish, industrial vision of Tokyo, but largely in a single house and its grounds in Edo-era Japan, sees a successful doctor thrown into a well and replaced by a double. The double’s motives, however, may not be as sinister as they first appear, which sets the stage for a strange, sad, and twist-filled narrative freely adapted from a short story by Edogawa Ranpo. The film’s relatively stately pace, dreamy, beyond-blue visuals and its surreal world of demon-like appearances, doppelgängers and forbidden eroticism echo not the David Lynch of Eraserhead, but that of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Mulholland Drive. Another apt comparison is the lyrical cruelty and moral ambiguity of Audition, from Tsukamoto devotee Takashi Miike, who also directed the making-of included here. Gemini is a bewildering, yet a rewarding film, one worth watching at least twice, and an important step in the career of a too-rarely lauded director.
Audio and Visuals: 5 stars
Let’s put it simply: this film could not look any more beautiful than it does here. Hope you like the colour blue!
The sound is similarly excellent, giving plenty of audible definition and detail to the film’s bizarre, beguiling score of human voices.
Presentation: 3 stars
The menu shows off a series of the film’s most haunting images, set to its unnerving score. It’s easy to navigate but it should be noted that the audio commentary doesn’t appear in the extras menu, so those who never think to fiddle with the audio settings might never discover it.
Extras: 4 stars
We have the aforementioned Miike-directed Making Of, as well as another behind-the-scenes featurette, some makeup tests, a trailer, and an informative, well-researched and pleasant commentary by Japanese film expert Tom Mes. Before each extra, Third Window Films kindly apologise for the low visual quality of the extras, though it’s really not so bad that any apology is needed.
Overall: 4 stars
Loving attention is given to a deserving yet overlooked oddball, now available in the UK for the first time.