Cure

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is my favorite director with that surname. I love not only his horror films, but also his "artsier" stuff - or shall I say "even more artsy" stuff?
Cure is one of his horror movies: An amnesiac hypnotizes people so they commit motiveless murders. A cop with the a mentally ill wife hunts him.
As is his wont Kurosawa doesn't tell this simple story in a very straightforward manner. He instead opts for disturbingly symmetric framing, deliberate slowness, sometimes unintuitive cuts to dissolve all certainties. Even scenes that would in lesser hand (hello, Last Broadcast) be "reveals" of "twists" the viewer has seen coming for miles keep this feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity.
The only obvious thing is that Kurosawa is not out to scare us (although his films can be very scary indeed), but to disturb us and ask questions concerning the nature of loneliness, alienation and life in this century. I am not sure if he is trying to answer these questions. If he does, he doesn't communicate them very well, but (and please repeat this after me:) art (popular or not) is not about giving answers.

Wish of the day: Kurosawa doing a Lovecraft adaptation.