Review for Confessions Of A Dog (2 Discs) (Review)

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Introduction
It's been a while since the last Third Window release in the UK. That's one of the drawbacks of practically being a one-person operation. Your average big studio releases countless titles, hundreds of discs a year in a relentless tide of plastic and merchandising. With Third Window Films, time not spent releasing films, is devoted to hunting down new licenses, which is why the past few months have been somewhat quiescent. Of course, have you seen the dross that big studios churn out? With Third Window Films, every new film is a treasure to be unwrapped, a gem to be admired. Of course not every gem is to everyone's liking, but when it comes to style, individuality, imagination, and sheer quirkiness, I have to admit that every one of Third Window's releases so far has been far from the ordinary. Scarce though they may be, I find myself looking forward to their releases more than any other label's. Last month saw the releasing season open up again with Third Window bringing Memories of Matsuko to Blu-ray after the DVD release in 2009. Looking ahead, we have titles like Sawako Decides, Cold Fish, and the critically acclaimed Confessions, currently playing in cinemas nationwide. But it's Confessions of another kind that constitute Third Window's first new title in 2011 to the UK market. Confessions of a Dog is the controversial Japanese independent film that has effectively been banned in its native country due to its close to the bone content. Third Window Films are releasing this in a limited edition boxset for the first 1000 copies, with exclusive, individual film cel postcards.

Hassei Takeda is a good cop, for about five minutes. He's a rookie on the beat, supposedly learning from his superior just how things work. His superior is a pervert, who likes to take advantage of his position to harass young girls. When a complaint about that reaches head office, it's noted how kind and helpful Takeda was in that situation, a fact that isn't lost on the Chief of Criminal Investigations, who decides to recruit Takeda as a detective. He isn't past buttering Takeda up either, putting him on the fast track to promotion, and making sure that he and his young and pregnant wife Chiyoko get all the perks that they are due and more. Of course there is a price to pay for all this, and Takeda soon realises that he has become part of a special club, a family, and that police work is less about serving the public than it is serving that family. It's simple, the police have targets to meet, have to be seen to be dealing with crime, and it's just an inconvenience when criminals don't comply by actually committing them. It makes it so much easier when the police have deals with criminal gangs to fill their quota of patsies, while they leave the lucrative crimes alone, for a price. It's also so much more convenient when there is an unspoken deal with the news media, so that they only report what the police want them to report. It doesn't hurt to have the judiciary in your pocket either. As Takeda learns, everyone's on the take in the police, it's just a matter of degree. It's just the way things are.

But there are some who find such a state of affairs intolerable. Freelance journalist Rikio Kusama first encounters Takeda during a carelessly scripted hostage crisis. It's where he also encounters press photographer Kitamura, who up to this point has been toeing the newspaper line of only reporting on what the police want reported. He isn't even driven to photograph the police openly tempting the hostage taker with a sachet of drugs until Kusama reminds him of how illegal such actions are. Soon Kusama is giving Kitamura a lesson in just how deep police corruption actually runs. It falls on Takeda to get these two committed journalists off the backs of the police. But there's nothing more dangerous to the police than an honest man. When things get out of hand, the police need a convenient scapegoat to sacrifice.

The Disc
Confessions of a Dog gets a rather unremarkable transfer on this DVD. The 1.85:1 anamorphic image is NTSC-PAL, soft for the most part, although with the grainy, realistic, documentary style approach to the film, it's not really an issue that causes any detriment. The DD 2.0 Japanese stereo track in also similarly low key, although in this case it's a matter also of volume level, which is certainly subdued on the disc. I had to whack my volume up to halfway before it was adequately audible. The subtitles are clear and legible throughout, with just a couple of minor typos worth grumbling about.

I had a problem on my set-up, the playback paused at 1.26:01, and again at 1.28:26 on my Sony player, and it wouldn't resume unless I pressed frame advance. On my Panasonic, I had layer change like pauses at those points, while on my laptop there was no issue. I e-mailed Third Window Films, and having tested the discs on a variety of set-ups, it turns out to be a predominantly Sony issue. You'd think with over ten years of DVD experience under their belts, these disc pressing companies would have gotten past incompatibility issues. Irony: Third Window Films uses Sony to manufacture their discs. Anyway, Sony DVD player owners need to be aware of this issue.

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