

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.
Direction
Imamura finds poetry in the grotesque and redemption in mud.
Acting
Koji Yakusho's face does more than most scripts.

Director
Shōhei Imamura
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Won the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1997, though Imamura famously said he didn't understand why audiences found it funny.
The eel symbolizes masculine emotional inaccessibility in Japanese culture — Takuro literally cannot speak without its proxy presence.