Hawaii 2024 Review: Kurosawa's CLOUD Baffles
I saw Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s (Pulse, Cure) latest film, Cloud, at the 44th annual Hawaii International Film Festival, and man, am I perplexed. I love Pulse (Kairo) and I wanted to love Cloud, but I can’t even figure out what the title alludes to; an Internet kind of cloud? The clouds in the sunset at the end of the film? No idea, friend. Bear with me as I attempt to unravel my thoughts on this film, as it’s not an easy one to parse, and it feels like a few disparate genres and pieces. The logline: Yoshii, a young man who resells goods online, finds himself at the center of a series of mysterious events that put his life at risk.
When the film begins, Ryosuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda; Cube, The Boy and the Heron) is reselling some kind of electronic therapy machines, and it seems like spammy work. But he’s making money, so good for him, I suppose. His girlfriend Akiko (Kotone Furukawa; Sisam, Revolver Lily) is also materialistic, and so is he, but since he’s the character Cloud focuses on, he’s who feels more fleshed out. She only appears in certain times in the film as a plot device, it seems. Cool.
Anyway, Yoshii floats through life re-selling rip-off designer bags and crap products under the name Ratel. When he’s offered a promotion at the clothing factory where he has a day job, he quits. The pace is quite slow and there are no characters you actually want to succeed, or even like. The camera is either static or barely moves. Everything is technically proficient and there’s a lot of shadows to be had, but I felt frustrated. Maybe this is by design, who knows, but I found my attention drifting several times. This sums up the entire first half of the film.
Yoshii and Akiko move into a building by a lake, which is more motivated by him wanting to escape a little trouble from disgruntled customers. The new place seems nice, if only a little cold and empty, seemingly more of an office space, but the place has a double use. Troubles begin anew, and things finally ramp up with something (I didn’t catch what) flies through their bedroom window.
At this point, Cloud is no longer a staid drama, but now a thriller. Yoshii hires an assistant to help with the work, and then lets him go, saying he no longer trusts him. Akiko leaves out of boredom and her hatred of a high-tech espresso machine. It isn’t long before all Hell breaks loose, and a group of extremely angry men dox Yoshii. They talk about doing very bad things to him on the Internet.
The pitchfork mob of I think six awful, disgruntled customers and sociopaths who run the gamut between mad and deranged show up at Yoshii’s home and place of business with guns and break in. At least something exciting’s happening now, even if you don’t like a single character. Anyway, he’s kidnapped, but escapes the livestreaming torture planned for him and hides out in a hunter’s shed. The group tracks him there and the worst of them, a man who killed his family, shoots the guy dead.
Apparently, nobody seems to think that murdering a scammer is that wrong. Seems a bit extreme to me. One man does say his fiancée committed suicide due to his own reselling, and I get that, but there isn’t much in the way of explanation. Or perhaps I lost a few things in translation.
Akiko appears again and attempts to help, but so does Yoshii’s assistant Sano, who goes ahead to save the day instead, rendering her useless again. The cat and mouse game continues while the vigilantes with guns turn on each other until there’s the big bad family murderer left. Now Cloud is a Western with a shootout. When the characters are safe, Yoshii checks his sales to see that he’s made 10 million Yen. Sano, who I think is Yakuza, vocalizes his appreciation.
In kind of a false ending, Akiko takes an abrupt turn, in a somewhat watered-down femme fatale style. She points a gun at Yoshii, whom she previously tried to save in an attempt to steal his credit cards. Okay. I saw her long look out a window, watching as her man was gassed and kidnapped, showing little emotion and that signaled that something was up. However, Akiko has so little screen time that this move feels like it’s not connected to the rest of the film. Sano is more than happy to kill her, and… then we see Yoshii and Sano in a car. Sano tells Yoshii that his Internet handle Ratel signifies “one of the fiercest mammals.” Is this a coded love story? They drive into the sunset and rapidly darkening environment, which feels like a weird metaphysical moment.
Cloud is Japan’s entry into the 2025 Academy Awards, and while it’s not a bad film, I sense that there’s a more coherent one in the edit. Perhaps this is one of those cases where the entertainment industry authorities are really honoring the filmmaker after decades of the opposite. Kurosawa completists may love Cloud, but I am simply baffled.
