A Snake of June Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

A Snake of June Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov October 5, 2015

Winner of Kinematrix Film Award and San Marco Special Jury Award at the Venice Film Festival, Shinya Tsukamoto's "A Snake of June" (2002) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Third Window Films. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film; new video interview with the director; archival featurette; and more. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

Rinko (Asuka Kurosawa, Cold Fish, Himizu) is young, fit, and beautiful, the type of woman any man would love to be seen with. She rarely talks and does her best to keep their stylish place clean and tidy. Shigehiko (Yuji Kotari) is older and slightly overweight. He has lost most of his hair and wears thick old-fashioned glasses. They are a couple, but most of the time they look like actors who have been forced to live together against their will.

The odd balance in their relationship is disrupted when a stranger (Shinya Tsukamoto) contacts Rinko and threatens to send Shigehiko photos of her masturbating. Shocked and horrified, Rinko quickly agrees to participate in an erotic game planned by the stranger in exchange for the negatives. Shortly after the game begins, however, Rinko discovers that she can no longer control her sexual urges.

The film’s message is that suppressed sexual desires can corrupt one’s mind just as easily as cancer can destroy one’s body. There film is divided into three acts that show precisely how it can happen.

The first two acts follow closely the game between Rinko and the stranger. After the package with the photos is delivered, she is forced out of her comfort zone and her character transformation begins. For a while she tries to continue playing the role of the quiet wife that has the type of life she wants, but the stranger carefully disables her defensive instincts and speeds up the transformation.

During the second act two important confessions are made that bring together life, death and the transformation. The film then produces various observations about the common logic that defines how men and women treat each other after they marry. Here the presence of the stranger is also used as a litmus test of sorts that exposes the supposedly damaging flaws of the logic. (The major point is that if Rinko and Shigehiko were aware of their suppressed sexual desires, the stranger would have never been a factor in their relationship).

The resolution is rather predictable, but things get quite bizarre when the stranger eventually meets Shigehiko. The film temporarily steps into the same territory David Lynch and David Cronenberg’s best mind-benders like to visit, though at this point the sudden shift does not seem as effective as it was obviously intended to be.

Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto who directed A Snake of June has always been fascinated by the manner in which the human body responds to different forms of pain. Most of his early 1990s films, for instance, see pain as an erotic tonic that ought to be explored and embraced rather than feared. Quite a few of them also treat rough metal in the same way conventional erotic films treat luxury designer lingerie. Unsurprisingly, pain is once again a key component of the plot in this film and there is even a whiff of the same industrial/fetishistic vibe that permeates Tsukamoto’s early films. On the whole, however, this is a much more subtle and relaxed film that tends to see beauty in familiar places.

Tsukamoto shot A Snake of June on 16mm stock, but later on transferred the film to 35mm stock for theatrical screenings. He also printed the negative onto color stock and added a blue tint to recreate the gloomy atmosphere of the rainy season.

The blue version of Snake of June included on this Blu-ray release was recently remastered under the supervision of Tsukamoto.

A Snake of June Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Shinya Tsukamoto's A Snake of June arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Third Window Films.

The release is sourced from a new remaster of the blue version of the film, which has been supervised by the Japanese director. There are obvious improvements in terms of depth and clarity. However, one should keep in mind that the film was shot on 16mm, blown up to 35mm for theatrical screenings, and then the negative was printed onto color stock where the blue tint was added. As a result, there are areas of the film where depth is limited and sharpness levels appear toned down. This is especially obvious where light is restricted and the blues evolve into grays (see the right side of screencapture #2 and screencapture #3). Furthermore, the new master for the blue version retains some quite distracting information on the top and bottom of the frame that would have been invisible during theatrical screenings of the film. To be perfectly clear, there are transition marks that appear during cuts which cause distracting jumps (you can see examples in screencaptures #10 and #11). This is rather unfortunate because the distracting effects easily could have been avoided during the remastering process. There are no large debris, cuts, or damage marks. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

A Snake of June Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The moody soundtrack benefits the most from the lossless treatment, but the film's sound design is modest at best. Indeed, excluding a few sequences where the sound of the heavy rain effectively enhances the unusual atmosphere, there are no notable contrasts and effects. The dialog is always clean, stable, and very easy to follow.

A Snake of June Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Director Shinya Tsukamoto - in this new video interview, director Shinya Tsukamoto explains how the idea for A Snake of June emerged and how and why the film was shot on 16mm and tinted, and discusses its unique atmosphere (with some interesting comments about its erotic overtones), its reception at the Venice Film Festival, his plan to preserve all of his films (which is why they are being remastered and released on Blu-ray), etc. The interview was conducted exclusively for TWF's Blu-ray release of A Snake of June. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (26 min).

• Shooting A Snake of June - in this archival featurette, director Shinya Tsukamoto explains what inspired him to shoot A Snake of June and the film's visual style. Also included are comments from associate producer Shinichi Kawahara, technician/colorist Masaharu Oomi (who worked on the color timing of the film), chief photography assistant Takayuki Shida, and special effects artist Hajime Nakamura, amongst others. In Japanese, with optional English subtitles. (20 min).

• Trailer - original UK trailer for A Snake of June. In Japanese, with imposed English subtitles. (26 min).

• Trailers - trailers for other Third Window Films releases.
  
  1. Tetsuo: The Iron Man / Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
  2. Tokyo Fist
  3. Bullet Ballet
  4. Kotoko

• Audio Commentary - Tom Mes, author of Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto, discusses some of the film's key themes, the physical mismatch between the two leads and the obvious lack of intimacy between them, the visual isolation of the two leads, the film's cold atmosphere and the erotic overtones in it (as well as the possible relationship between eroticism and violence), etc.

• Cover - collectible cardboard slipcase cover.

A Snake of June Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A sick loner forces a young and very beautiful woman to rediscover her body during a bizarre erotic game in this very stylish film from Japanese auteur Shinya Tsukamoto. The film has been recently remastered under the supervision of Tsukamoto, but I found the end result to be somewhat underwhelming. With a few minor adjustments this could have easily been one of the year's best releases. I still think that it is easy to recommend because the film looks wonderful in high-definition, but I really wanted to like it more. RECOMMENDED (with some reservations).