Keswick Film Club - Reviews - Cloud

In 1997 the Japanese Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa achieved international fame with his film 'Cure' . The film's subject matter was the investigation of a bizarre series of violent killings by seemingly random perpetrators who readily confess and remember their deeds but can supply no motives for them. Kurosawa gave the film world a new genre 'psychological  terror' and spawned a whole host of Japanese horror movies throughout the 1990's.

Now aged 70 the former Philosophy Professor is still going strong, or sort of! 'Cloud' is, as the title suggests, about the internet, but also the clouded minds of individuals obsessed by modern-day consumerism, being, for Kurosawa, the majority of us.

Ryosuki a young man in his late twenties is a ' reseller', someone who buys up goods , either genuine or faux, and resells them at inflated prices on the Web. This has made him wealthy enough to leave his desolate Tokyo apartment and move to a lakeside condominium with his girlfriend. Here he is hunted down by a disparate group of vigilantes who have been defrauded by him in one way or another.

The film's last hour involved a strange and bloody shootout in an abandoned warehouse, lots of dead-bodies ensued, but in a manner which more befits the alternative realty of a video game. Perhaps that is Kurosawa's point,  that virtual reality has somehow become conflated with our actual existence?

The body count is large, including his girlfriend. Only Ryosuki and his seemingly psychotic apprentice remain . They drive off into a strange borealic light intent on making more money in the hell they have created for themselves.