A bizarre crime, in broad daylight, with no obvious motive opens Nameless, and the hunt for the violent, unknown assailant begins. Adapted from the Japanese manga, Nameless plays at the Raindance Film Festival from 20th June.
This is not the first film to go by the title Nameless and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But just to avoid any confusion, this one is a psychological horror/thriller based on the Japanese manga by Jiro Sato.
Jiro Sato himself plays the eponymous main character, technically without a name, but who is given the moniker of Taro Yamada (a Japanese placeholder name in the vein of John Smith) when he is found as a 10-year-old mute vagrant and brought to a children’s home by a local police officer.
But we first meet our protagonist in a local café, where he perpetrates a mass attack on the customers, using an apparently invisible weapon. The police become involved in the hunt for this mysterious person, with one of the officers beginning to feel that he has a slightly closer link to the culprit than would at first appear likely.
Nameless is in competition at Raindance Film Festival in the category Best Horror Feature (The Roger Corman Award) and while it does fit into this category, it’s mostly because of the sporadic, extremely violent and gory scenes which pepper the narrative. What kept this non-horror lover engaged was trying to work out how the 10 year-old boy ended up here, and the persistent tension when Taro comes into proximity with others, as the viewer already understands what will happen, whereas the police and random bystanders do not.
The concept of choosing a good name runs through the film, contrasting with the protagonist’s lack of one, and it seems that there are also some (not too veiled) criticisms of both police methods and the level of social services available for looked-after children in Japan.
If you’re OK with a lot of blood and some uninhibited violence, then Nameless is an entertaining 90 minutes – but I will leave it to those who have knowledge of the manga to say whether it is a successful adaptation or not.