The Matsugane Potshot Affair

After Linda Linda Linda (2005), Yamashita has again surprised us with a very original film. This time not with sweet schoolgirls but with ice-picks and a chopped-off head forming the crux. The indefinable mood filled with suspense and black humour and a kaleidoscopic plot can turn The Matsugane Potshot Affair into a very bumpy viewing experience. But that is also the aim of the young director, who likes to juggle with tragedy and humour.
Somewhere in the 1990s, when the economy is already on the downturn, a mysterious couple moves into an empty house in a country town. With their arrival, relationships between the ordinary yet eccentric townspeople start to erode. There are the twin brothers, one of them a policeman who ends up in a tragedy. There is the man who lets his wife slave away while he loafs around. There is a girl willing to offer her body to anyone. When a bar of gold and a head rise from the frozen lake, all these lives become intertwined and the quiet life is gone for good. (SdH)