Review: Cure (1997)

"I was once full, but what was inside of me is outside now."

If the director Bong-Joon-Ho lists a movie as one of the greatest films of all time and cites how strong impact the movie has made on him, it's easy to understand its worth. We are talking about Kiyoshi Kurosawa's psychological modern horror/thriller 'Cure.' 

In Tokyo, a chain of gruesome murders where victims are curved by 'x' on their necks has started to completely entangle a detective. Even the culprits are found near the bodies with no memories of their crimes. It is a simple crime thriller until the horror starts to be added from here that the people really did not have any big intention of killing, but still, they did it!! A new angle comes into the light that they were hypnotized by a man named 'Mamiya' who is a psychology student and practicing 'Mesmerism.' he is a motiveless, manipulative criminal who just put criminal suggestions into the mind of people. He reminds me a bit of the character 'Iago,' a motiveless evil character of Shakespeare. You can try to be reasonable with a criminal with a motif, a criminal without a motif is too dangerous. 

The fact chills us how calmly the action of murders is taken. And the people who do that are ordinary people around us who may seem to have a simple, everyday life, but we don't know what's going on in their deep consciousness. In the 18th century, a German doctor Franz Mesmer tried to prove that all living things have 'an invisible natural force' and all they just need a 'suggestion.' it is both, a cure and a curse. And so it reminds me of the psychological thriller anime series 'Monster.' we all have a monster inside us, the suppressed self, full of basic desires. All it needs just one order to come out of us and drive it insane.

The third reference the film gives me is of the movie 'Blue Velvet' by David Lynch. It gives a little resemble that a city that may seem quiet on the surface, seems happy and calm but deep down, the scenario is entirely different. It may appear in order, everything is just and right, but one snap, and it reveals its true self, which is extremely ghastly. The director is only interested in breaking our beautiful allusion of everything good around us, the so-called good in us. We all are like 'Lady of Shalott', seeing the world through a magic mirror created by society, but the day we try to turn to see it with our own eyes, the mirror gets broken, and everything gets shattered. The movie forces us to turn towards the real world by simply asking, "who are you? tell me about yourself."