Original subtitles

Production: Kokuei Ltd.

Planning: Daisuke Asakura

Screenplay: Shiro Yumeno

Photography: Masashi Inayoshi Lighting: Man Ogawa

Recording: Ginza Sound Editing: Shoji Sakai

Assistant Director: Shinji Imaoka

The play "Aria for the Eyes" by Maya Tomura

Cast: Kiyomi Ito Momori Asano

Kyoko Nakamura Issei Sagawa

Koichi Imaizumi, Taketoshi Watari Hiromi Hirose

Mineo Sugiara Takeshi Ito

Director: Hisayasu Sato

Have you resurrected DEVIO?

Yes, if you don't use the camera occasionally, it will cry...

Oh, shut up!

We're the only ones making a video diary called DEVIO...

from 'DAILY VIDEO'.

Only you... and me.

A, E, I, O, U...

Studio voice rehearsal.

Are you following the same course as your little sister?

Yes. I'm thinking about performing the play Maya left behind.

Did she have to die that way? I must give her something...

Maybe she'd had too much 'Halcion'...

It'd been a while since I'd last worn this...

and I found this in the pocket.

PAX - Electric Apparatus Dept. Business Department: Akihito Esaka

'Please express my gratitude to your husband.'

I'm not sure I did...

UNFAITHFUL WIFE - DISGRACEFUL BLAME aka THE BEDROOM

Welcome back...

According to the membership rules, system safety is guaranteed.

Members don't know about you...

and you won't see the members, because of...

the 'medicine' you will be given.

You can keep your clothes on. Sleep will come soon...

You're sleeping deeply now...

Mother...

Looking at the album again?

Oh, welcome home! You could have phoned, though.

- Not even glad I'm home, eh? - That's not true, but...

I already had dinner with the boys from work, so don't bother.

Don't you want a family life?

Food, bath, bed... I'm not interested in that kind of life.

No, I suppose you're not, but... I don't know.

I would really like to be ensnared...

to be bound by the form... at least, I think so.

Well, you could borrow a model husband.

Not now!

Stop it!

No!

- Didn't you expect it? - But you're so rough...

Do I look like a stranger, because I rarely come home?

No, that's not it, but...

Then what's the matter?

Don't you have any desires?

I don't feel anything any more...

I have desires...

I want you...

But...

you don't love me.

The magic carpet...

When did I stop swallowing the pills?

It was tiresome to enact sleeping.

Often, I would like to open my eyes...

and stick out my tongue.

But I absolutely didn't open my eyes and look at them.

Because I had the feeling I would see hell in there.

By not doing so, my conscious self immediately wanted...

to get a grip on the strange situation, being in a state...

of apparent death.

The irritation and tedium of not showing...

the itching, chill and stiffness my brain...

perceived through my skin, made my muscles want to spasm.

I began to learn that pain is pleasure...

and that pleasure is pain.

'Kyoko writing at the desk.

'Husband enters.'

She's dead...

She definitely swallowed too many pills.

Don't we have to lay her out?

The roof of the theatre school I used to attend...

Are those female students over there? How nice...

But it's difficult to find a job...

and there isn't anything nice.

I also felt that way, in my school days...

It feels great up here!

At lunchtimes, I used to hang around up here.

A, E, I, O, U...

Until the day I met someone...

even in my wildest dreams, I would never have suspected...

the existence of something like the 'sleeping room'.

What are you doing?

I borrowed it, because I don't have time to lie in the sun.

Take me in your arms.

Wait until I've finished!

No way!

I'm Takano, the owner.

I bear responsibility for the incident with Kinue Nemoto...

and I have dealt with it. It will not happen again.

Please don't worry, and go to sleep.

Ever since, it's only creaking here.

Why don't you repair it?

That's because our lies have been collected here.

That's not true!

You, 'computer-programmer'...

don't you feel like a rental husband?

What?

I didn't tell you before. Esaka said it would be alright...

if we acted like a married couple when he's not there.

In that case, you can also cry for me and laugh with me...

And love me...

and hate me.

Maybe family life is just an empty sham from the start... maybe.

And through me, you want to ascertain if that's true?

With you, I think I can make something different of it.

Give me my stomach medicine!

Sorry.

Do you take these?

If you're working with computers, your nerves can get strained...

and you can't sleep any more.

Since when?

A long time ago...

But I don't take much, so it's harmless.

But the name 'Halcion' does have a strange sound to it, doesn't it?

The first time I heard the name of this medicine...

I thought it sounded like Spring was put to an end by Death.

Like 'Haru-shi-on', the Japanese kanji for 'spring', 'death' and 'sound'?

When Spring has died away, the rainy season is close behind.

Doesn't it feel like you're dead when you're asleep?

I wonder why everybody can sleep...?

Perhaps because they think that between falling asleep...

and waking up, there's gonna be the same world as before?

Is it the same with you?

I understand...

but the same world is still there.

It can't be gone.

Okay, that's enough!

Let me take a bit more...

these are the highlights of today's diary.

He's a great husband, isn't he?

It's dead...

The batteries ran out. You'd better charge them.

Why do you let me do these things?

What do you do when Esaka comes back?

He doesn't come back.

You can introduce me to him as your husband.

But you're no rental husband. I'm choosing you now...

How selfish!

Why didn't you choose me in school?

Yes, it's really selfish.

In those days, I surely wanted to have some teenage drama!

I wrote the diary for that girl, but do you write?

Doesn't it interest you?

You're telling me something more important happened today?

No...

Well, then isn't it better to shoot it?

Shoot it!

Do you know Andy Warhol?

Maya...

Why did you start going to that room?

I thought about making it the subject of my graduation thesis:

'The Sleepless Generation'.

I live in a �55,000 a month apartment.

But...

What?

In a dream, I saw it...

a woman killing a man and burying him in the ground.

There was an incident like that in the place I lived in as a child.

Could it possibly be the apartment you live in?

Now that would be...

I've got the feeling that I know that woman.

When you go to the sleeping room, it seems you can forget everything...

and it's pleasant not to remember anything at all, but...

recently I've been a bit frightened, and I have the feeling...

I'm being followed by someone.

Well, I've followed you.

I wanted to know what kind of people go to the sleeping room.

Why do you only film these things?

Isn't it all a lie?

Hey, tell me!

Your body is so heavy, like a stone.

Get off!

You're too heavy!

Hold me... don't let me go!

What about the video my little sister's making?

Do you want to compare her with me?

Although you resemble your sister, you're also different...

although you're different, you also resemble each other.

Therefore, you're the same person inside of me...

That day, I decided to do something I had avoided until then.

I wanted to see what the people who touched me really looked like.

I had no intention to reject...

whoever would appear before my eyes.

Mr. Takano... from where are you watching me?

You're looking at me, aren't you?

I'm not looking. I can feel it...

Where are you? Come out!

Do you think I can come out of the emergency bell?

You killed that girl, didn't you?

Not the men who go to that room, nor Mr. Takano...

but you killed her, didn't you?!

Can I still love you...?

You're a murderer!

But you must love me!

Maya...

Come on! I'm Kyoko!

Don't start all over again now... I'm 29!

I'm not doing that...

it's only increasing by one figure...

Like you said...

things like family life are a bunch of lies, all fake!

Sleepy...

I'm sleepy...

Don't look!

'Dripping blood...

'Kyoko: "Who are you?"

'(she turns around)'

Me or my sister... who did you love?

Who's there?

Mr. Takano?

That's right...

Did you know?

I saw everything you did.

Why?

Because you're my wife...

For you, who's working for a manufacturer of electronics...

it must be easy to install a video camera inside the emergency bell.

You certainly have got it all wrong!

I stood guard, to protect you from the members.

But you didn't protect him from committing a murder...

You think so?

This is a part of the video diary you took...

Are you jealous?

Did you also let Kinue Nemoto swallow a fatal dose of medicine?

That's a lie!

There isn't any proof?

Did you love him so much that you killed him?

He's not dead, he's just sleeping...

Halcion has a side-effect, causing a state of sleepwalking.

You're expected to know that.

You've had too many Halcion pills.

Me?

I didn't take them!

Maya...

you'd better come to your senses!

What are you saying? You've forgotten your wife's name?

Kyoko died of an overdose of Halcion...

you are the younger sister, Maya!

The death of your older sister was a shock to you...

since that day, you've been taking increasing amounts of medicine.

Your consciousness grew dim...

and you started to believe you were your older sister, Kyoko.

Did you know it?

The guy didn't see Kyoko's accidental death.

It was suicide.

Maybe...

But I love you...

and therefore I treated you as if you were my wife.

You locked me up in the sleeping room?

No, I thought you would become stable...

when given the proper dose of medicine.

You planned to make it a treatment room?

I'm going...

Where to?

I'm going to smash the eyes that are watching me!

I've smashed a lot of them...

but they're still watching me!

It's unbearable... don't look at me!

That day, the world entered the rainy season.

Everything that is surrounded...

by the capsule of endless falling water is dissolving...

The Earth, the cities...

me...

Welcome back...

Translation: Ronald Knaap Ripped & retimed by lordretsudo

In February 1997,

at the Cinema Cereza in Ikebukuro, Tokyo,

a panel discussion with four unique directors was held, with their films screened.

Toshiki Sato,

Kazuhiro Sano,

Takahisa Zeze

and this man,

Hisayasu Sato.

From where are you watching me?

You're looking at me, aren't you?

I'm not looking. I can feel it...

I got the material from Yasunari Kawabata's

'The House of the Sleeping Beauties' and 'The Lake'.

The lack of communication in cities...

Even within married couples, people don't talk to one other.

And I depicted 'communication' through cutaneous sensation in a closed room.

It's a kind of womb...

The inside of a mother's body.

In there, one communicates in the way babies do.

Those who gather there have difficulties with ordinary human relationships.

Those difficulties are directly reflected in sexual tendencies, aren't they?

There is actually no ordinary sexual behaviour in there.

My way of depicting these scenes is pretty unilateral.

But seen from the women's side, exposing their bodies...

is also a way of communicating, I think.

And a murder case occurs in there.

When I came to Tokyo at 18,

I found it hard to adjust to city life.

Besides human relations,

I felt the city itself was mad.

That was my personal and subjective impression.

To put it in an abstract way, I was raped by the city.

Living in the city, I've been unable to get used to it ever since.

I don't know why myself.

Society is as if wrapped up in a wafer...

it's invisible.

I don't want to be absorbed into it.

It's a rationalised world, and I've never been able to adapt to it.

But then, what am I? I'm living in it, after all.

Perhaps I pose questions to myself and answer them, in my films.

Still, my films don't end with 'The End'.

When I finish a film, its theme lingers on in me.

I've always been that way.

Society continues. Likewise, each film of mine doesn't end in itself.