Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis version).
Collaborating with his favourite leading man, Koji Yakusho, writer-director Kurosawa opens Doppelganger (2003) in the existential dread familiar from something like Cure. A scientist, who is working on robotic wheelchair that would help disabled people through concentration and muscular impulses, sees himself in public, a person who looks exactly like him, hovering at the edges. Eventually this doppelganger follows him home. The doubling is never explained, but functions as an id, the doppelganger striking back on behalf of the scientist’s frustrations working in a corporate environment and pushing further the scientific project into lucrative and independent directions.
And yet Kurosawa’s film shifts from an eerie uncanniness into farce and slapstick, driven by the humour inherent in dealing with a version of yourself that’s kind of an asshole. Are they the complete opposite of your own ovalues or are they an extension of what lies underneath the surface? Yakusho is great in playing these two characters who are the same person, the clear contrasts and the shifting symbiosis. Kurosawa uses split screen effectively well to add to the scenes where the two Yakushos are speaking to each other, splitting up the screen and placing them in frames, alongside the use of body doubles and simple effects to show them sharing the space together.
I was never quite sure where Doppelganger was going but there were big belly laughs in the back end, with strong visual gags and a silliness that steers towards violence. The doubling seems to spread, where supporting characters change personalities. There’s also intriguing themes about the creative process, the scientist’s frustrations with his project possibly a parallel to a craftsman like Kurosawa and making a film.
Streamed it on the Internet Archive. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 