One Missed Call
lots of discussion of this wonderfully strange second act culminating in a reality TV segment that seems often lauded around here, I’ll instead pivot to discussing a scene that has been rattling around in my mind all day. early on there’s a moment where a soon-to-be-deceased character is coming to the realization that they are cursed only minutes before their death is (according to the self-prophetic voicemails that show up here) to take place. he immediately reacts with shock, denial, a dismissal of the absurdity of the situation even in the face of the passing of his friend. he argues with the protagonist, summoning the elevator. when the doors open... nothing is there. 133
<PERSON>’s camera lingers on this empty elevator shaft opening, no ground or space to inhabit safely in sight. everything — the voicemail box, the natural perception of physical/metaphysical divide, this simple wire and lever carrying a box carrying people — running out of order. time stops. we see this man process, in those moments, that feeling of terror and doom, the portal to nothing beyond life that awaits him. a shadowy figure starts to form vaguely in the dark shaft, and he is pulled into a freefall. It’s merely a singular death in a film filled with spectacular amounts of bloodshed, but something about its coldness lingered on me long after the credits. few directors understand how to make one feel that despairing inevitability, and while this is hardly his best vehicle for such things this moment somehow remains emblematic of everything Miike does best. 295