Now available from Radiance Films
A young man wakes up in an asylum and slowly goes through healing and setbacks with two very different doctors while trying to remember how and why he got there.
Written by Toshio Matsumoto and Atsushi Yamatoya, based on the novel by Kyuusaku Yumeno, and directed by Matsumoto, Dogra Magra is an odd duck of a mental breakdown/mental health film with twists and turns and odd scenes here, there, and everywhere. It’s one of those film with solid writing for its script that clearly works with the novel (or what this viewer assumes of it, so could be wrong, probably is). The writing here works and the direction is right along the same line. The director being one of the writers works to this film’s advantage.
The cast here is good, really good, close to great. The leads are fun to watch, in particular Shijaku Katsura as Professor Masaki, one of the doctors treating the young man who lost his mind. His performance is great here, sometimes making you wonder if he is perhaps not a doctor and maybe one of the patients. His performance walks that thin line with talent and shows a great grasp of what makes one’s work entertaining in a film such as this. He’s friendly, cryptic, fun, a whole lot of odd, and just right for the film. Whatever scene he is in, he steals and runs away with, somehow making himself the star in every scene he is in without feeling like he is trying to usurp the spotlight from anyone else. Playing the young patient is Yôji Matsuda who is fantastic here and really holds his own against Katsura. He’s perfect as the perpetually lost young man who is fascinated with the findings and teachings of the Professor. The other Professor, or Doctor, is played by Hideo Murota who works his character is a more serious way. His work is really good here, but he less fun and thus loses the attention at times. There rest of the cast is good, but most do not stand out so much, feeling more like an ensemble cast type of performance.
The film is shot beautifully by cinematographer Tatsuo Suzuki and edited just right by Hiroshi Yoshida who make for a great team with this story. Another aspect of the film that is just right is how it uses other forms of storytelling, in particular early on, bringing life to stories told by Professor Masaki, one in particular using photos of puppets that are just lovely and create a sort of film within the film, making one which there was a film of just that available.
Dogra Magra is a carefully crafted, well-shot, well-acted, entertaining, at times fun and at times touching, drama that makes the most of its odd situations and really rings its story to the screen in just the right way.
This re-release of Dogra Magra looks and sounds great with plenty of extras included. The favorites on this release are the director commentary from 2003, the behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage, and the featurette about the film as seen through the eyes of Tatsuo Suzuki. This is a one of those releases that takes a film that had been harder to find and gives it a respectable release with good, solid extras.
