haunting, erotic, enigmatic

A genre-bender that is part mystery, fantasy, film noir and kitchen-sink drama, Starfish Hotel keeps you guessing right through to its shocking but wholly cathartic conclusion.

Salaryman Arisu scurries rodent-like between packed commuter trains, humdrum office paper-pushing, and the Ikea hell that is his apartment, retreating for solace into the mystery novels of Jo Kuroda, set in the menacing and unknowable Darkland. A man with a past, the memories of an affair he had years before start to seep into his everyday life. When the motif of Kuroda's novels suddenly becomes a reality for Arisu, the walls between fact and fiction, past and present, begin to dissolve, with horrifying consequences.

A key element in the film's creation of an otherworldly atmosphere is the score - a haunting soundtrack that played in my head weeks after I saw the film. Despite the fantasy elements, over-sized vermin, eroticism and insanity, this is a film primarily about character. It is about longing, loss, and the need to belong.