Snakes and Earrings (Hebi ni piasu) [2008] • Japan

For those who've seen Noriko's Dinner Table and wondered what happened to the younger sister played by Yuriko Yoshitaka ('just a nameless girl, walking toward the center of the city'), it may come as no surprise to see her show up drunk, naked, and tattooed in this tale of middle-class urban ennui in the underground. From one dreamworld to another.

Yoshitaka doesn't have the sexual maturity to make the S&M stuff in this film remotely erotic and the two guys she bounces between, two tattooed punks, while giving us a multi-layered view of their world, are little more than posers. Their poses do reach beyond stereotype and the film tries to be cool towards them, demonstrating a reasonable awareness of the subject matter, but it comes up short in execution.

I like Yoshitaka a lot, think she is a promising young actress, but don't think she is suited for this role. She seems to take little pleasure in any of it—giving the film an uncomfortably exploitative hum.

Snakes and Earrings is far more modern and realistic/relatable than a CAT III film, probably because its story comes from a teen-aged girl's prize winning novel rather than the sexist fantasies of old men, but while the film has a contemporary world view it doesn't have the story punch necessary to elevate it beyond voyeurism. For those just interested in seeing Yoshitaka naked, there's plenty of that (thankfully rather tame) but it's not enough to make this film more than a flavorless attempt at revealing her world.

★★★