Invisible Waves Details

Not an invisible director

This film, like it's prequel 'Last Life in the Universe', has an almost invisible actor at its heart. Asano Tadanobu kills his boss's girlfriend. We don't see him kill her but we know he will. How? We see his face as they are dirnking. We see him give her a glass of wine. We see him looking at a knife then hiding it. He doesn't look evil or demented or any of the things we are supposed to look out for in bad guys, and we are confused as to why he's going to kill her. There you go.

We find out, in a way, at the end when why's are no longer important.

What you find inbetween the confusion is a film of blood and foriegn airports, of phone calls and either no-one or everyone speaking your langauge. Asano travells south east Asia, on the instructions of someone else. Who? we're not sure, but we let the movie work it out at its own pace. Travelling with these guys is enthralling.

The director suggests a kind of permanent paranoia in the sounds and images of this film, boat sounds creating more tension that a hundred CGI violins. Around every corner you expect a ghost, or gangster or a beautiful girl to appear.

It's that kind of movie. A movie which lets you think, imagine and feel inside the tone of the film. Which is exactly why Asano works in this (and 'Last Life'). I heard it said that he's part of a Japanese tradition of actors who practise internalising their emotions, until they show near-nothing, and through that comes the performance.

It's a mysterious one this, take a breath.

[Highly rated reviewer]

A bit too listless this one

This is something of a languid thriller. Its slow pace, washed out colours and existential feel doesn’t really lend itself to the thriller genre but the main elements of the plot do. We have a subtle central character who’s guilt ridden, in search of himself and looking for some form of redemption. Tadanobu Asano has the right kind of quiet quality to carry this off and it’s a mature, intelligent film, but it’s not as engaging as the directors previous film, ‘Last Life In the Universe’, also featuring Asano. I wasn’t really intrigued by the characters and I didn’t care too much about the outcome. If you wanna check out this director go for ‘Last Life’.