PUZZLE (2014)

Japan. Direction: Eisuke Naito. Production: Hiroyuki Miura, Naohiko Ninomiya / Bridgehead. Screenplay: Eisuke Naito, Makoto Sasaki. Photography: Yoko Itakura. Music: Hisashi Arita. Edition: Masahiro Onaga. Cast: Kaho, Shuhei Nomura, Kazuya Takahashi, Kokone Sasaki, Saori Yagi, Kokone Sasaki. Running time: 85 min

LANGUAGE: Japanese / SUBTITLES: English, Spanish

Don’t confuse this with other flicks that have the word “puzzle” in their title. Here we have Puzzle, the incomparable, since it prompts, at this, the Festival’s 25th anniversary, our first meeting with these creatures who live in our dampest and most disturbing dreams and nightmares: Japanese schoolgirls with pleated skirts, shirts, stockings and a delicious predilection for suicide! Besides the girls, Puzzle is inhabited by people with masks who patch enormous daisies, uninhabited by a handful of disappeared teachers and dominated by a being who takes the decisions on our life and death. Nothing like Saw (2004), because here everything is far more vicious, virulent and sick. Be careful. Arigato.