The Third Murder
FILM REVIEW
The Third Murder In the opening 87 seconds of writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Third Murder, twice-convicted murderer Misumi kills his boss in a field, pours gasoline on the body and sets fire to it.
Open-and-shut case? Not so fast. When defence lawyer Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) gets attached to the case, he quickly discovers that Misumi (Kôji Yakusho) modifies his story every time someone talks to him. True, he turned himself in and confessed, but the details of the crime keep changing, and those details could mean the difference between prison time and a death sentence.
Kore-eda’s newest film, Shoplifters, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. The Third Murder, from 2017, is at its simplest a courtroom drama, but the themes of family, memory and loss that play throughout many of the director’s work are evident here as well.
Misumi’s chief lawyer is fed up with the man’s changing story, but Shigemori finds himself drawn ever further into the shifting tale. A visit to the accused’s landlady reveals a quiet, well-behaved man who was upset when his pet bird died — but when Shigemori literally digs into the facts around the pet’s burial, even that doesn’t quite add up.
And what are we to make of Shigemori’s father, a retired judge who sentenced Misumi at his first murder trial in the 1980s? Back then, the elder Shigemori avoided the death penalty by blaming social circumstances and arguing for rehabilitation; now he believes that some people are just born bad.
Kore-eda’s unfussy cinematography allows the story to unfold through a series of conversations; be warned, there are a lot of subtitles to keep up with. Some of these take place in a conference room in the jail, where the reflection of the accused man in the glass seems to overlap with that of his defenders. In a truly surreal moment late in the game, Misumi turns the tables on his inquisitors and asks: What do you think the real motive is?
Audiences will no doubt be asking themselves the same thing. They may even wonder if Misumi was in fact the murderer. The Third Murder requires a degree of patience and concentration from viewers, but the conclusion, even if it doesn’t answer every question, is rewarding. ★★★★ The Third Murder opens July 20 in Toronto; July 27 in Vancouver; Aug. 12 in Saskatoon; and Aug. 17 in Winnipeg.