The Third Murder
(Sandome no sastujin)

One man murders another, he is arrested. Misumi, a repeat offender (one of the ideas suggested by the title), calmly confesses his crime: “I killed”! However, afterwards he persistently retracts his statement. In a film that plays on both the courtroom drama and film noir, Kore-eda introduces a disconcerting complexity into the question of truth, which is the goal of all inquiry in the course of a trial. What is our ability to judge based on? Can a brutal murder be justified? Here, there is no unexpected development, the facts alone create the twists and turns, and a defence lawyer in turmoil: as if, this time, the path trodden were underpinned by a quasi-metaphysical questioning. JB