When a young man wakes up in an insane asylum with no memory of his past or his name, he relies on the resident doctor to help him on the road to recovery. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the doctor may not be a dependable information source, especially when the young man meets another doctor with different opinions who is supposedly deceased. Writer/director Toshio Matsumoto sets up a bewildering situation where we’re never sure who to trust, blurring the line between fantasy and reality as the young man tries to find the truth.
Buy Dogra Magra Blu-rayDepending on who you believe, the young man’s name may be Ichiro, he may be responsible for killing his wife on their wedding day, he may have a twin, and either or both doctors may be involved in highly unethical experiments involving their psych-ward patients. Is the second doctor actually alive or just a figment of Ichiro’s fractured imagination? Why does his memory get wiped as soon as he seems to have reached some answers? Matsumoto raises plenty of questions during the film’s nearly two-hour running time, leaving some of their resolutions tantalizingly ambiguous.
Matsumoto is best known for his groundbreaking 1969 feature film delving into the lives and loves of transvestites working in a gay bar in Tokyo, Funeral Parade of Roses. He also directed numerous experimental shorts, which informed some especially trippy sequences in Roses. While Dogra Magra’s plot would seem to lend itself to Matsumoto’s experimental bent, he plays it mostly straight, preferring to keep the focus on Ichiro’s struggle to reconcile his reality rather than delving into his madness. It’s the nuanced, cerebral approach of a veteran director, and it works well for the project, although fans of his earlier surreal flights of fancy may feel a bit shorted by the relatively tame production.
The new Blu-ray from Radiance presents the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with mono sound, sourced from a new hi-def digital transfer supervised by DP Tatsuo Suzuki and producer Shuji Shibata. Picture quality is clear of defects with consistent color levels, retaining aesthetically pleasing amounts of original film grain. Sound is crisp and clear, and the new and improved English subtitles are thoroughly coherent. The disc also includes an audio commentary track by Matsumoto. Bonus features are an interview with Matsumoto, a visual essay by a critic, a brief feature about the chant in the film, a trailer, and a gallery of production sketches. As usual with Radiance releases, reversible cover art is included, and the removable obi strip provides the option of displaying either cover image without marketing text.
While Dogra Magra isn’t as bonkers as its premise or Matsumoto’s most well-regarded works from two decades earlier, it is a thoroughly entertaining and expertly crafted epilogue to his notable film career.
