Mike Yokohama: A Forest With No Name
Japanese Title: Shiritsu tantei Maiku Hama: Namae no nai mori
Director: Shinji Aoyama
Actors: Masatoshi Nagase, Kyoka Suzuki, Nene Otsuka
Year Released: 2002
Genre: Comedy, Thriller
See Also: The Most Terrible Time In My Life, The Stairway To The Distant Past, The Trap, Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani?
I still haven't found it, the transitional film that took Shinji Aoyama from unfocused genre filmmaker to visionary artist. Mike Yokohama: A Forest With No Name, Aoyama's feature-length treatment of an episode of the 2002 Shiritsu tantei Maiku Hama TV show ("Maiku Hama, Private Eye"), was made the year after Eureka, the film that put him on the international map. And while it's not as fascinatingly original as Eureka (it is an episode of a TV show, after all), A Forest With No Name still manages to be both clever and thought-provoking, and worth a look.
First of all, I have no idea why the lead character's surname was changed to "Yokohama" for this DVD release. In the TV show, as well as the three mid-90s movies in which Masatoshi Nagase portrayed the Yokohama-based private eye, he was Maiku Hama, an obvious ode to Mike Hammer, a repeated joke that's acknowledged with the claim, "It's my real name." In A Forest With No Name, he prefers to be called just "Mike," a difficult request in a country where people are routinely referred to by last names. His choice of name, his very vocation—these signal Mike as an individual, an outsider in a society that values group harmony over individual needs. Remember, the private eye is uniquely solitary and with no affiliation, operating outside of both the police and organized crime. Mike revels in his (anti-)position in society: he flaunts this with flashy punk clothes, returns bows of greeting with distancing hand waves, and takes every opportunity to project his voice, even in solemn occasions.
Mike's self-identity is thrown into confusion after taking a job to bring back a wealthy industrialist's daughter, who has entered a self-help commune and refuses to come back. After joining for the job, Mike is told by the enigmatic woman who runs the commune that there is a tree in the forest that looks like him. When he finally sees the tree (we never do, only a fantasy in which Mike appears in tree form), he realizes that maybe what he really wants, what he truly desires, is to be just another face in the crowd. Or tree in the forest, if you will.
For Aoyama, who revels in these kinds of identity conundrums, this is familiar ground. It will also seem familiar to anyone who's seen Charisma, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 1999 thriller about a strange tree and its hold over a group of people. The two films are extremely different, yet both feature the symbol of the tree as a unique entity yet also something that's part of a larger community. That Aoyama used to be an assistant director (and something of a protégé) of Kurosawa's is more than mere coincidence. Did Aoyama rip him off? The films are different enough to warrant a negative answer. Let's just say that great minds think alike, and leave it at that.
Or should I say, leaf it at that?
Otaku Alert: The loan shark at the beginning of the film is played by veteran character actor Yoshio Harada, who's appeared in 9 Souls, Izo, and Drawing Restraint 9, among many, many others.
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