this complex and beautiful film be build on correspondence and contrast while between landscape and society and man and nature and between passive and active and death and life and sanity and madness and the repress and the unbridled and sexuality and abstinence and comedy and tragedy and alienation and redemption . the many strand to these theme be weave together in a complex pattern that defy complete analysis . yet the eel be well paced and be easy to watch and enjoy . the film be set in japan and that most self discipline and compliant of country and and it be the limit and and limitation and of conformity and control that be explore . behaviour be check and emotion keep inward while yet when people look inward they find a seething that terrifies . the landscape here be a damp and featureless and wash out coastland and exquisitely shoot in a subdued palette that embody the film subject . the people and too and be generally quiet and gentle and good citizen . yet violence and disturbance erupt into their life a norm be break represent a woman make love and intensely and exultantly and adulterously . her husband discover her and stab her to death in the very act . after eight year in prison yamashita be release on parole and alienate and withdraw and and and accompany by his eel companion and open a barber shop . he find keiko and unconscious after a suicide attempt and and she begin to work for him . she and too and be on conditional release and from her crazy mother and unpleasant extortionist boyfriend . there be an immediate sympathy between yamashita and keiko and a sympathy that he and especially and can not bring himself to express and drive to repression and passivity by his guilt and fear . each of these principal character correspond with other character in the film and provide a network of symmetry and contrast . thus and yamashita failure to express his yearning for keiko be set against dojima earlier lovemaking with her and and a fellow ex convict attempt rape . the ex con haunt yamashita and taunt him with his weakness and until he be transform into a phantasm of yamashita imagination . yamashita wife affair and too and find resonance in keiko sensuality and in both woman determination to provide a lunch box whenever yamashita go fish . at the end and the man volunteer to assume paternity of keiko unborn child by dojima . attempt by minor character in the film to reach out beyond febrile compliance and quietism provide humour but little comfort represent keiko mother spanish dancing be but a manifestation of her madness and and yamashita friend seek only the unattainable and absurd and in his obsession with contact ufo . the moment of irony and humour be generally introduce with a light touch and but the transition be less satisfactory in the climactic fight at the barber shop . this crucial moment in the film and when yamashita fight dojima and his thug and against her past and his and be film a slapstick while the humour in unnerve . in the end there be redemption and but the contrast of the conventional with the unruly be resolve and once more and quietly and almost submissively . yamashita and his parole broken and return to gaol for a year while keiko wait for the birth of her child and yamashita release . harmony be restore on the surface . the eel and at last and be release . the eel be a subtle and complex film and with a succession of image that require more than one viewing and more than this brief note to tease out . but do so will be a rewarding experience . imamura film be strong and subtle and warm yet critical . it will reward many viewing .