#AAAAAANYWAY. dont ask me how many times ive watched this movie. u dont wanna know

[springcatalyst]

so i may have rewatched murder on D street. again. abandon all hope ye who enter here

all the major characters foil fukiya in a really nice way. for a movie that claims to be a detective story, the murderer is really the focal point.

I guess since it's a ""detective"" story I'll start with akechi. he is obsessive and he goes through a period of uncertainty, where he doesnt know who he wants to be or what to do. in the last scene he is directly compared to fukiya when he says "some men cant live without being consumed by something," and the cop hes working with says outright that that's awfully similar to how akechi functions. akechi only catches fukiya BECAUSE of this obsessive, meticulous method. and fukiya is nothing if not meticulous in his work. both of them work-obsessed, both of them consumed by it, both of them detail oriented and the best at what they do, it's hard to not see those similarities. but where fukiya derails and spirals, akechi pulls himself out of that depressive uncertainty with his work. he finds a purpose and a goal in his work, he can safely place his identity within the work he does because not only is it socially acceptable (as opposed to art forgery and gender expression), but its rewarded. fukiya cannot find the same stability in his work by its hidden nature, even if the outside factors at play werent there.

tokiko is also of note: her and fukiya share a certain vanity, a certain pride, and an easily damaged ego. tokiko knows this of fukiya very early on, using his pride ("tell me now if you cant do it"/"surely a man of your skill would have no trouble") to get him to agree to work for her. but it's there in her, too. in how she feels betrayed, double-crossed, lied to, when she figures out he referenced himself for the akegarasu works. in how she shows him the pictures of her as the original model, in how she preens under the gaze of the men she shows the paintings to, because thats her. and then, of course, his own pride takes THAT information- that she was the ORIGINAL original- and leaves him feelimg betrayed, like he lost something, like something was taken from him. and he kills her to reestablish the value that he thought he had and so quickly came to need. HE needed to be the original. he rested his understanding of himself on it.

saito isnt so much a parallel to fukiya as he is an opposite. saito is emotional, passionate, hedonistic. he knows what he wants and what he likes and he pursues it: the most obvious example is through sex, but I did notice that when he recognizes akechi's name, he pursues that: he gets a drink with him, likely having to lure that depressed bitch out from his room to the cafe, but he did it because he knew of his work and wanted a conversation with the man responsible for it. he met a celebrity, basically, and weaseled his way into dinner with him. saito knows what he wants and he gets it, not by manipulation or violence, but just by chasing it with a certain sincerity that fukiya always lacks. fukiya is meticulous and careful in a way that either stems from his work or drew him to the work that suits it, but either way its present in his personal life as it is in his work. he moves and speaks deliberately, with measured emotion, none of the genuine reaction that saito expresses. he rarely does things for the fun of it, and while it's obvious he finds satisfaction, pride, expression, in his work and his art, it is so meticulous, theres none of the hedonism that we see in saito. fukiya finds lying very easy, so much so that he cheats a psych test, where saito is so genuine that his looks incredibly suspicious just because he reacts bigly. and also, of course, its impossible to not mention the distinct sexlessness of fukiya's character, especially compared with saito, who is having lots of sex all the time. fukiya is averse and avoidant of sex, uncomfortable with it, uneasy. when faced with it, it is something he fights and then resigns to, a far cry from the almost gratuitous pursuit of sex that saito does. additionally, in the scenes where sex comes into play, saito is in control of his, literally the dom with his partners, where fukiya is very much out of control of his situation, not given much choice, and not really an active participant. the fact that these two are the two main suspects for the murder, then, is a great, jarring contrast. saito has every reason to look guilty, and he does, but the fact is that he is innocent.

even the minor characters have some fascinating roles. the couple across the bookshop, the way they arent involved with anything, just witnesses. saito runs into the street yelling about murder and we dont see him, we see the couple, watching through the windows. theyre voyuers, an audience, an outside eye. somebody to perform for. the nature of both fukiya's work and his life is that it is heavily scrutinized- his restorations have to be perfect, his forgeries even more so (or are all his restorations just forgeries passed as originals?...) his life must find a balance between being what he wants, and being something more broadly acceptable, something that fits within the world around him. its only natural that some of it ends up being a sort of performance.

i dont really have a satisfying conclusion i just think that all the characters are used to their absolute most potential and the end result is an impeccable exploration of what the fuck is wrong with fukiya. and i enjoy it immensely. thank u for coming to my ted talk

the student/assistant of akechi's is a clearer version of what's going on with fukiya. we're not given enough time with the character to know the nuances of their situation, but at baseline they're a girl passing herself as a boy for whatever reason to work with akechi. at the end, we see them put on the dress, the lipstick, look in the mirror, same as fukiya. that outward performance dissolves and we see something closer to the truth- it drives home the broad strokes of fukiya's situation with a less nuanced one- look at these two characters, what do they share? its a visual shorthand, as well as a continuous cycle, echoing that fukiya is not uniquely different, not totally isolated. (even if HE is isolated, its because of him, not because of this)

mayumi (the model) is similar to saito in how her sexuality highlights fukiya's lack of one. in the scenes where he's painting her, it gradually becomes clear that she's into it. she's having a great time; he's just painting. he's getting more and more frustrated which leads to rougher movements and more intensity but it is, again, strikingly sexless. she either doesn't pick up on this or doesnt care, and thinks the natural conclusion is to have sex, even when he obviously doesn't want to.

the girl saito is fucking (i dont think shes ever named?? if so i missed it OOPS) plays a kind of one-two parallel and contrast. her affair is a secret for obvious reasons, some kind of deeper desire that is kept hidden for her's and other's benefits, even as its pursued nonetheless. this mirrors fukiya's own queerness (in whatever sense of the word you think fits) in a pretty one-to-one way. but the way they go about it, or what it is in the first place, is vastly different- again, her open demonstration of sexuality and comfort in sexuality, of desire, makes his own lack of both of those things all the more obvious.