Psychology Counselor

The weird and the eerie meet in Psychology Counselor. When Mami's office is visited by a woman who claims to see a ghost, what is usually an everyday space slowly begins to become a haven for the ominous. "I can distinguish reality from fantasy" says the patient at one point. And it is precisely on the blurred border between the two worlds that Zenzo Sakai's film is set: a mystery story that dialogues with the conventions of genre cinema, especially the genre tradition in the Japanese context. This woman's story, fragmented and ambiguous, is translated into images of the same nature that, achieved through the use of ellipses and time jumps, contrast with the subtle camera movements and constantly burst in as intrusive thoughts. Images that create a confusion between what is narrated and what is seen, obscuring the ability of both the characters and the spectator to discern what is or is not real. Orality, in this way, challenges our gaze by leaving us with only a few clues to try to solve an enigma that never pretends to be deciphered. Because what Psychology Counselor seeks is not to provide answers to the questions it poses but to generate sensations that accompany us throughout the film and that last even after it ends. And it is there, perhaps, where the mark of true horror is to be found. In the incomplete, in the ungraspable, in what enters through the eyes and never comes out again. DANIELA URZOLA