“Winning streaks don’t last forever,” sneers one of the antagonistic forces of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud as he confronts his victim. Like much of Kurosawa’s work, there is both an unnerving horror and perverse enjoyment to be found in the downward spiral — the cinematic appeal of watching a character’s fortunes take a turn for the worse.
Fresh off the fantastic short horror film Chime, Kurosawa shifts to psychological thriller mode in this tale of Ryousuke Yoshii who, under the name Ratel, moonlights as an online reseller of various goods and appliances. In the course of his dealings, Yoshii conjures up a whole legion of enemies collectively praying for his downfall.
Played by Masaki Suda (who most recently voiced the Heron in Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron), Yoshii is a man who operates “on impulse and instinct,” clinically taking advantage of struggling individuals by buying their wares low and selling them high to make profits for himself and his girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa).
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Yoshii’s business manner encapsulates his whole approach to life: a single-minded individual entirely devoted to his own gains, without much thought for the people around him. Kurosawa introduces us to Yoshii’s way of life and his relationships with others, where there is a decided lack of warmth. Even with someone he’s shared such a long history with, such as Muraoka (a wonderfully enigmatic Masataka Kubota), his former classmate and mentor in the reselling business, every word and gesture from Yoshii towards Muraoka suggests someone who has no time for general pleasantries and takes little care in his human interactions.
Muraoka, after being snubbed by Yoshii for a business opportunity, morosely remarks that Yoshii has found “conventional happiness” when he meets Akiko. There’s an irony to this observation as while it may seem happy on the surface, even Yoshii’s relationship with Akiko plays second fiddle to his computer screen flashing out the profits of his endeavours as Ratel while a majority of their conversations revolve around monetary matters. For Yoshii/Ratel, life is all about profits. Kurosawa opts for a slow-burn approach to this opening section, following Yoshii through his day-to-day life.
The film formally marks a tonal and scenic shift when Yoshii suddenly quits his day job at a factory after being offered a promotion, deciding to move to the countryside with Akiko to pursue his reselling schemes full-time. From here the film begins to riff into territory reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs as Yoshii, looking for a fresh start and thriving in the outskirts of the city, finds himself in the line of fire facing one unsettling incident after another.
After this shift, Kurosawa begins letting the psychological thriller elements of the film play out with more flair. Yasuyuki Sasaki’s camerawork and Shinji Watanabe’s sound design make for valuable assets (as always) for Kurosawa to disorientate the viewer and the characters as the new environment throws Yoshii out of sync. Kurosawa knows when to play more directly into the tensions of a given sequence, where to more overtly create this sense of fear and urgency. Even more effective is when he lets the camera trail around and linger on somewhat inconspicuous surroundings, gradually letting us see elements in the background that unnerve us — ramping up the paranoia to put us in Yoshii’s mindset.
The film’s violence begins in a more unassuming manner, yet no less unsettling. When we see Yoshii’s eager, go-getter assistant Sano (Daiken Okudaira) deliver a bracings series of kicks to a teenager who committed arson on Yoshii’s newly acquired lakeside home, and one of Yoshii’s victims of his reselling schemes get beaten up, it’s clear that the stakes have changed. The confident Yoshii watches as the callous way he has ruined other’s lives through his selfish mindset comes back to bite him, and as the film progresses we’re left to wonder, how far can this go?
Needless to say, Kurosawa doesn’t hold back, and what ensues is a grand tapestry of surprises, shocks, and brutality. Kurosawa also blends this tone beautifully with a great streak of humour, most notably in the character of Takimoto (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), Yoshii’s seemingly genial and well-meaning former boss who reveals some unexpected depths to his interest in Yoshii. Kurosawa wants us to enjoy, however perversely, this game of moral descent. “Let’s have a blast,” one of Yoshii’s adversaries deadpans as he cocks his gun.
Cloud is at once, a morality play on vengeance and retribution, a cautionary tale against capitalistic pursuit of success at the cost of others, and an immaculately crafted work by one of the great, most distinct directors working today.
“Please keep focusing on only making money,” is darkly invoked as one of the final lines of the film as we hurtle towards a quintessentially nihilistic Kurosawa conclusion. To Kurosawa, I would add: “Please keep focusing on only making movies.”
