Usugesho (Tracked)

 The 1985 Japanese film "Tracked" has a title in Japanese that makes more sense: Usugeshô, or makeup. The protagonist (?) Sakane is fascinating but not exactly easy to root for: he's on the run after murdering his family (and in disguise - that's how the makeup figures in, along with a woman he meets along the way who is a makeup artist who wants to help him hide). 

The movie is ably constructed to build suspense in flashbacks as this snake slithers through different lives. That makes it more intriguing to piece together. Even as many people describe Sakane as a snake and say he is a born killer, the constant construction and rubble by which he is surrounded in post-war Japan, and his seeming change in attitude, makes one wonder. Maybe this is what the translator was thinking of with the title "Tracked." Trains are seen and heard often in the movie. Did his life go off the rails, or is this the path on which he was set? Is the Sakane who escapes and flees prison the same person who brutally murdered his wife with an axe, or like the philosopher's axe (or ship of Theseus), is it the same axe if the dull blade is replaced? Like fellow axe murderer Raskolnikov, can Sakane justify his crimes to himself? 

So Usugeshô is an interesting movie that raises questions while still being a complex... well, not quite mystery, not quite thriller, but something of which Hitchcock might have approved. It is beautifully shot, emphatically for adults though (not sure why anyone would let a kid watch a movie about a guy who murders his child, but you never know). It takes its time and lingers in long shots and feels very real, and then sometimes it does something strange and sudden. Much like the main character, in fact.

A neat double exposure for a two-faced lead character.