AllMovie

With his enigmatic, cerebral drama Koorogi (aka Crickets), Japanese writer/director Shinji Aoyama pays openly declared homage to one of his influences, the recently deceased Swiss director Daniel Schmid. Laden with symbols and archetypes, the picture concerns Serene Kaoru (Kyoka Suzuki), a young female caregiver assigned to look after a deaf and mute elderly gentleman (Tsutomu Yamazaki) at a seaside house. She has sacrificed numerous pleasures and comforts from the outside world to take the job, and thus begins to "test" her client's dependence on her by increasingly removing herself from his sphere and evaluating his response. Director Aoyama films the picture experimentally, with a 1:33:1 aspect ratio designed to create visual restrictions for the viewer and thus emulate the restrictions of Kaoru's new life.