Sleepy Eyes of Death 10 - Hell is a Woman

Not the slightest clue what the title's supposed to mean.
It is the beginning of winter, especially in the hearts of the characters in this film. Most of the time it plays like a dark and very old legend, with protagonists who seem to know or at least suspect in what kind of legend they are acting and which roles they have to play, giving the story a feeling of unreality, as if everyone was caught in a half life. However, there are outbursts of strangeness and kinetic violence, when the literal fog lifts only to reveal things we don't really want to see. Ichikawa's Nemuri Kiyoshi walks through the movie more like a force of misfortune and grim justice than a human, in the end dissolving into the snow.

More Darlings of the Day:
"I can hold you if you want. Or I can fall asleep."

"It sounds beautiful. But death is never beautiful. It's rather painful. You have to struggle with pain until death comes."

"I've never killed anyone who wanted to be killed."