A man who can kill with a seemingly invisible weapon goes on the rampage after being harangued by a religious woman in a cafe, leaving police and witnesses baffled in Hideo Jojo’s adaptation of the manga by actor and comedian Jiro Sato who also stars in the title role. The nameless hero, given the generic moniker “Taro Yamada” by the well-meaning policeman who discovered him in childhood, has a mysterious supernatural ability that causes things he touches with his right hand to temporarily disappear. They return when he takes his hand away, but living creatures appear to have been changed as if they existed in a state between life and death and then generally pass away soon after.
Taro (Jiro Sato) seems to have lived well into his 40s deliberately refusing to use his right hand, so what prompted this sudden turn toward nihilistic and indiscriminate violence? The answers may not be entirely clear, just as there is no concrete explanation of where Taro might have come from or how he acquired these strange powers. But it seems to be a reaction against a society that he feels does not accept him, or at least his failure to connect with it. After experiencing a betrayal by someone close to him, he vows that he’s going to stop trying to connect with people and this murderous rampage seems to be an expression of his loneliness and frustration.
Then again, society did attempt to reach out to him in some ways even if it does not appear to have made much of an effort to understand his condition or to help him to live with it. Despite the Christianising religious overtones that hang over the film, Taro never seems to consider cutting off his hand or making it unusable. As a child, he bound it with wire, presumably to prevent himself lashing out with it instinctively or accidentally causing harm to other people. His only companion, an equally nameless little girl of unknown origin given the generic moniker “Hanako”, begs him not use it even to protect them, which suggests that he may have done so previously with negative consequences. Perhaps there is some benefit to it which is why he doesn’t try to neutralise his arm, but it’s never clear where things go when he touches them or why they comeback changed or depleted.
The main issue is that he has a choice about using it. Originally, he didn’t want to, and perhaps didn’t want to kill all those people in the cafe either but ended up doing so. The irony is that he wants to connect, but is literally prevented from reaching out. He has these almost Nosferatu-like ticks and grimaces and is largely mute. He can hear and understand, but barely speaks and when he does, it’s with great effort. His voice his horse and the words come out awkwardly in a strange order. Yet the elliptical quality of the tale seems to hint at a desire to reconnect with his childhood self thereby closing the circle and making himself disappear.
Others may in a way be trying to do the same, such as lead investigator Kunieda (Kuranosuke Sasaki) who suspects the case may be linked to something in his own past but has it taken away from him by the National Police Agency who question the team’s competency while themselves failing to make much of an effort to understand the reality of a man like Taro. Some joke that perhaps he is a ghost, and in a way he does seem to be a supernatural entity. His invisible weapons are visible in a reflected surface such as a mirror, but apparently not captured on camera. His tragedy, though, maybe that he doesn’t understand himself beyond the fact of his difference and is too afraid to open himself to potential rejection by those who might be able to help him if they wanted to, with the potential for exploitation by those with darker motivations. In that sense, his violence, depicted with bloody absurdity by Jojo, does seem to be an attempt at connection or to feel himself a part of this world. Nevertheless, the conclusion seems to suggest that in the end acceptance comes from within and in giving in to his basest instincts the adult Taro may only have disappointed his more innocent childhood self.
Nameless screens as part of this year’s Raindance Film Festival.
Trailer (no subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 