IMAHEI

The moviehas been described as a Japanese "In Cold Blood," and that will do for starters, I suppose. But the Richard Brooks film of "In Cold Blood" went for a black andwhite,grimly realistic documentarylook,whiledirector Shohei Imamurahas widerconcerns in "Vengeance is Mine." His film isbased on the true story of realcrimes,to be sure, but it isalso a cry of despair and hopelessness on behalf ofitsinsanehero.Thehero (who isheroic in the samedoomedsense as Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment) is Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata). We learn that he went on a killing rampage in theearly '60s, murderingtwo railroad employees for their money and thenfleeingacross Japan - killing, committingfraud, posing as auniversityprofessor, somehow eludingthe police for 78days.The filmbegins withbloodyscenes showinghisearlycrimes, and thenflashes back to atraumatic childhood incident inwhichhisfather,devoutly religious, isshamed in the young son's eyes by a navalofficer. This sort ofinstantpsychoanalysis is about as convincing as theangelfromheavenwhose arrival was expected momentarily in. "In Cold Blood." But Imamuradoesn'tinsist on themotivations ofhischaracter. Instead, he followshimacross Japan and through several relationships, including one with aprostitute and another with a womaninnkeeperwho comes tolovehim andoffers tosharehisfate.There arealsoscenes combiningviolence with the terriblemadness thatpossesses Enokizu. An encounter with an elderly lawyer on atrain, for example,leads to a murder and then to agrisly and unspeakablydepressingscene in the lawyer'sapartment: The killertapes up acloset containing the victim's body, and then sits down to drinkhimselfsenseless.Movies aboutactualcrimes are usuallyfrustratingbecause, limited tothe facts, theypretend thatthe facts are enough. (This wasalso theflaw of Norman Mailer'sbook about Gary Gilmore, "The Executioner's Song.") "Vengeance is Mine"transcends those limitations and gives us a portrait of a killer that ispoignant,tragic and banal enough to deserve thecomparison with Crime and Punishment.