Mark Reviews Movies: THE THIRD MURDER

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 2, 2018

We see the man murdered at the start of writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Third Murder. There's no question about the identity of the killer or the brutality of the killing. It's a visceral scene of the soon-to-be murderer and the soon-to-be victim in close-up, walking next to each other toward the near-future spot of the crime, along a riverbed on the outskirts of Tokyo. We see the wrench rise and fall, and then the camera cuts further away, as the wrench falls repeatedly and as the man falls to the ground. That's when the killer retrieves a canister of gasoline and begins pouring the liquid over the body.

It's a rather startling way to open a movie, particularly since we have no understanding of who these men are, how they ended up in this place, and why the murder takes place. Kore-eda's screenplay answers the first query rather quickly: The victim was a factory owner, and the killer is Misumi (Kôji Yakusho), a former employee of the factory who was fired for uncertain reasons. We also learn that Misumi has confessed to the murder by the time his team of attorneys arrives to interview him in jail. His story is inconsistent, but there is one constant: Yes, Misumi did kill his former boss.

The specifics of the setup show some wisdom on Kore-eda's part. This is a mystery story, of course, but it leaves no room for error in what is seemingly the most important piece of information. We know Misumi killed the man, because we see it happen with our own eyes. The important questions here are far less about what happened and more concerned with why it happened.

The movie presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the truth. By the end, we think we know why Misumi killed his former employer, even if he's hesitant to own up to his motivations. He's a liar, to be sure. The multiple versions of his story point to that, even if they all end with him killing a man. The family members of the dead man are liars, too, for reasons that seem completely unrelated to the murder and for reasons that might be the foundation of the perpetration of the crime. Even one of Misumi's attorneys appears to be dishonest, given a dramatic shift in Misumi's defense later in the story.

Kore-eda is after that pesky thing known as the truth, and he has orchestrated a tale filled with unreliable people in order to tell that story. New details come to light with regularity in this legal drama, and then additional details—sometimes to which only we and one other character are privy—seem to contradict previously known or inferred knowledge.

The filmmaker, indeed, is so concerned with creating a web of disinformation and uncertainty that the movie never finds a sense of humanity within the tangle of its plot. Our protagonist is a young, idealistic lawyer named Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama), who at first sees his client's case as a relatively simple matter of planning the best legal strategy to prevent a death sentence. This isn't the first time that Misumi has killed. He killed two other men in his hometown some time ago, and because of that fact and the prosecution's assertion that Misumi murdered the factory owner as part of robbery, the Japanese legal system essentially dictates that, if he's convicted, he will hang.

Shigemori, who's own life is primarily defined in cliché (a failed marriage and a disillusioned teenage daughter created by his professional drive), gradually becomes determined to uncover the truth behind the killing. Part of his mission is strategy, such as sending his co-counsel to find Misumi's estranged daughter to act as a character witness. Part of it is the remnants of his idealism, which sees him clashing with his father (played by Isao Hashizume), a former judge who granted some clemency to Misumi during the first trial and now, with another murdered man on Misumi's rap sheet, regrets the decision to allow compassion in his ruling. The two have a debate about the efficacy of the death penalty, although Kore-eda's own critique of that ultimate form of punishment is so indirect that it feels like window dressing.

The performances are solid, especially from the two leads. Fukuyama offers a sense of professional amidst the constant uncertainty gives the character more life than his background. Yakusho plays Misumi with an eerie combination of calmness and amusement—the signs of a cold-blooded killer, a man who is certain in the rightness of his actions, or, perhaps, both.

There are the usual twists and turns, involving a payment to Misumi from the dead man's widow (played by Yuki Saitô), which is far from innocent but not in the way we might think, and a chilling revelation from the victim's daughter (played by Suzu Hirose). The muddling of the truth continues until the very end.

What does it mean, though? It seems unfair to compress Kore-eda's intricate plotting to something simple, but in the end, the murkiness of the truth is exactly and only that. There's nothing deeper to The Third Murder. There's little sense of these characters except as vessels to lie, be honest, and lie again. It never becomes tedious, except, perhaps, in its final shot—a literal crossroads that serves as a pat, unearned metaphor.

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