Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a man who understands the 21st century. His filmography is a testament to the evils of the new millennia; be it the portal to hell we opened with the creation of the internet in Pulse, or the way our closed off lives lead to evil going unnoticed in Creep, or the numbness that occurs from witnessing senseless violence in Cure. He knows the darkness that lives in the heart of the 2000s, and he’s not afraid to present it to us plainly.
That same sort of perspective on the rot of society is center stage in Kurosawa’s latest, Cloud. Cloud follows Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda), a notorious reseller, who hits it big after a chance investment, and decides he wants to try and make a career out of his kinda/sorta scam. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s been collecting a following of enemies who are growing, and are looking to act on their vengeful rage.
For anyone who’s seen a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film, there is a lot here that is familiar. This is a world filled with maladjusted pockets of loners and losers who would rather see others fail then they themselves succeed. It is a lonely, paranoid world, not unlike the other grim worlds Kurosawa has created. But, like a master wielding his weapon of choice, Kurosawa leads us through this dread inducing world with precision, showing us Yoshii’s sad existence; no matter how successful he thinks he is becoming, he is only ever one bad investment away from it all toppling over. He’s a man guided by ego, blinded by the danger that billows around him, so focused on his small world of moving merchandise in and out that he doesn’t notice the noose as it tightens.
There is an expectation of where this film is heading, no doubt, as its tone is pretty consistent (think a techno-nightmare version of Straw Dogs), and Yoshii seems to be hurtling towards a certain moral lesson as we move into the climax. But, without giving too much away, the 3rd act of Cloud shifts in a direction you probably would never guess, as a character reveals himself to be more capable than previously expected, and, shockingly, a very large amount of bullets begin to fly. And, boy oh boy, do they fly; apparently, Kurosawa went to the “Michael Mann Foley School”, because the gunfire is Heat loud; rifle and pistol fire ricocheting off of metal frames and smashing into concrete, before making meaty thuds into flesh and bone. It is totally unexpected, and totally fucking rad.
The final moments are a bit heavy handed, sure, but Kurosawa was never one to be subtle; It’s a Faustian pack, for both the film and society, that we all signed when we allowed our lives to be co-opted by technology and capitalism. “The Gates of Hell”, indeed.
Specs:
The only disc available with this Criterion release is the Blu-ray, but, this being a recent film, with Kurosawa giving it his usual stylistic flairs, it still looks fantastic in this presentation.
For features, this is admittedly a little barebones, just a trailer and a new interview with Kurosawa, but the interview is a great little look into the making of Cloud, and of Kurosawa’s overall filmography.
Cloud is a dark reflection of our broken world. While the early Kurosawa films, namely Pulse, felt more like a warning about what a new tech-focused world could become, Cloud is an epitaph to society. The world of synthetic cruelty and neural apathy is already here, and we’re just living in the dumb, mean, and always hungry facsimile of “community” that we’ve created.
