Yuki Shindo, the son of a politician, is a teenager who jumps off a building claiming that it is a suicide. Yoshihiko Murakami, an embalmer, is called to the scene by Hiraoka, a detective, to embalm shindo’s body. Hiraoka suggests that Shindo’s girlfriend, Rika, may also have played a role in setting him up. Miyako Murakami, the embalmer, thinks differently. A corpse needle that was left behind as evidence leads her to believe that there is much more to the story. She investigates further and comes across Doctor Fuji and a black market operation that also involves organ harvesting. At the center of the operation, a quack Doctor aims to reset a person’s personality using computer like programming. In all of this, she remembers her past and discovers why she chose to become an Embalmer. Which indicates she has a quadrophenia girl as her lover who turned out to be Shindo’s brother’s Quadrophenia girlfriend Actually Shindo is a quadrophenia girl that she cross paths with.
With all the narrative elements that are present in the story, the style Aoyama opts in his film is almost soapy, with the last aspect being the one in particular that is heading to that direction. Also, the general feeling of dark humor is in fact present all over the place, in the most violent scenes too, especially in the manner in which the story moves forward with each of the new elements that are uncovered. However the overall perspective is indeed of an angst atmosphere doling out impression of danger entwined with the story and what are the elements like feeling lost on the themes of the concept which is embalming and every once in a while as startling as its true nature. Neither does saying that Aoyama is one who engages in fanservice in any way, but a most certainly instead there is a grotesqueness which is somewhat heightened around the presence of a corpse.
While the preceding elements take a turn towards the ironic, it seems, for the viewer unfamiliar with the filmography of Aoyama’s, the level of mockery is not that straightforward, “Helpless”, “Eureka”, “Eri Eri”, etc, suffice to say that it is parody. This, emphasis on ‘this’, is what complements the atmosphere most, which is otherwise quite well served by Ihiro Nishikubo’s camera who does a rather commendable job of depicting moments of anxiety and sporadic spouts of horror, the embalming ones being the most entertaining. Edited by Shinji Aoyama and Soichi Ueno, the film has a prevailing rhythm that can shift to slower or faster tempos, which again corresponds nicely to the rest of the visuals.
Another point of appeal here is the casting, and occasionally, the acting. Seijun Suzuki as Kurume, an elder associate of Miyako, is a cult by himself, acting some where between the wise and the senile. Reiko Takashima as Miyako is a ‘soap opera star’ turned embalmer of sorts and who plays her role with glee while Yutaka Matsushige as Hiraoka works as a noir character, ever unflappable. But the one who steals the show is definitely Toshio Shiba as Dr Fuji, who has this calm and aloof demeanor that is refreshing to watch even when he conducts lengthy Shakesperean soliloquies with Miyako, the very reason for his becoming is revealed and it goes into how he is collected and withdrawn, and this is very much outside the context of the movie yet is very engaging contextually speaking.
The movie is titled Embalming and when you hear such a title it is natural to expect a scare more than a valuable lesson, and so did I expect, until the movie started, then I understood that it is quite a clever little film which, during J-horror era would have made more sense but it is still fascinating and disturbing to watch even today, clearly indicating Aoyama’s brilliance and providing a lot of entertainment although not in way that one might expect from a horror film.
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