The Eel

After a grave crime lands him behind bars, a once prosperous businessman returns to life on the outside weighed down by the past. He opens a small barber shop and tries to blend into ordinary days, speaking only in measured fragments to the few customers who cross his threshold. His world stays quiet and solitary until a peculiar companion arrives, an eel he befriended while in prison. The creature becomes an unlikely confidant and a strange anchor for a man who keeps others at arm's length. Imamura uses this odd bond to explore loneliness, guilt, and the stubborn pull of human connection, letting small, patient moments radiate the film's restrained mood without sensational turns. Its pace remains deliberate and restrained.

Shōhei Imamura directed The Eel, released in 1997 as part of his long running study of ordinary lives under pressure. The screenplay credits include Daisuke Tengan, Motofumi Tomikawa, and Akira Yoshimura, signaling a close tie to Yoshimura's material for adaptation.

The Eel stands out in Imamura's filmography for centering a man who communicates less with people than with a nonhuman companion. The eel sequences create a quiet iconography that audiences remember, and the film's dry humor and observational tone echo Imamura's knack for turning everyday life into a social microcosm.

Critics highlighted the film's restrained pace and its meditation on guilt, forgiveness, and the limits of social reintegration. By foregrounding a peculiar friendship over melodrama, Imamura invites viewers to read between the lines and assess how memory shapes present behavior and the possibility of renewal after crime for ambitious viewers.

Box office data for The Eel is not widely published, making it difficult to gauge overall commercial performance. The film found its audience primarily in art house venues and festival circuits, where Imamura's approach attracts thoughtful viewers in select markets.