Dr. Akagi

This relatively unheralded, kinda goofy flick--said to be Japanese master Shohei Imamura's last--is actually an improvement on his acclaimed Palme d'Or winner The Eel. Both suffer from similar drawbacks--rampant random quirkiness, a schizophrenic tone, overly long--but I found myself first amused and then gradually enthralled by the eponymous doctor's obsession. The search for a cure for hepatitis sounds like the staid province of the TV-movie (as Charlie Meadows says in Barton Fink, "I can feel my butt gettin' sore already"), but it turns out that medicine is a lot more interesting when your general practitioner spends most of his time running around town like a maniac, complete with medical bag and wide-brimmed hat, accompanied all the while by a bouncy jazz score. As in The Eel, our protagonist is surrounded by a wacky group of misfits, but this ensemble seems more organic, less contrived--they all have a common goal, and their enthusiasm is infectious. The picture gathers strength as it goes along, then falls apart in the final reel, as Imamura employs a couple of painfully dumb metaphors, one of them involving a woman who loses her pants to a whale. (Seriously.) A strong optional purchase. (M. D'Angelo)