Few films suffer from the malady of being too clever. I know this sounds like praising with faint damn, but truth is confusing is confusing is confusing. It doesn’t matter if you’re Albert Einstein or a paint-sniffing toddler. When entertainment becomes so taxing on your mind that you start to nod off, well, it’s still a fail. I’m going to be kinder to this film than it deserved; just keep in mind any future viewing of today’s picture might require a pause button and a panel discussion.
Tanaka (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a young reporter into truth-seeking and pissing off bus patrons. We’re not sure why he chooses the day after visiting his sister, Mitsuko (Hikari Mitsushima), in jail to reopen a year-old murder case, but the two must be related, right? The unsolved crime involved an assailant taking a knife to a well-to-do family. Has nobody investigated this before? Pretty sure murders in Japan are rare; does the sheer lack of homicide make Japanese detectives morons? That’s beside the point; we’re not going there. Where we are going is through a series of investigative conversations where you can’t exactly tell who’s telling the truth and who isn’t.
Speaking of lack of truth, the trail leads back to college high school (not sure which; logic would dictate 
college, but the dynamics sure seem like high school). Wait a sec. Film, are you trying to tell me that an entire family got wiped out by a mass murderer because of school relationships? What is this, “Pretty Little Liars?” REALLY REALLY Mean Girls? And, wow, guys, how long are you going to hold a grudge? Maybe I don’t need to ask that of the country that gave us The Grudge.
Look, the truth is I haven’t got much to say about the Gukôroku: Traces of Sin. It was quiet and weird and a bit hard to follow. As a result, I’m pretty sure I fell asleep through some of it. The climax, however, hit like a Mike Tyson uppercut. And the creepiness of the shocking conclusion begged comparison to The Skin I Live In with one question for a hero: why did you investigate this? And one question for the audience: do you really want to know? I respect this film for intelligent craftwork and sharp use of the medium, but I can’t guarantee you’ll emerge from this thing with anything less than a feeling of intense nausea. You’ve been warned.
Here’s a film called Gukôroku
It’s about a reporting bloke who
Finds murder solution
With sick resolution
Maybe I’ll just solve a Sudoku
Not Rated, 120 Minutes
Director: Kei Ishikawa
Writer: Kôsuke Mukai
Genre: Mysteries best left unsolved
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Copious note takers
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: The easily befuddled
