Snakes and Earrings
蛇にピアス
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Split tongue, tattoos and two lovers — Kanehara Hitomi's Akutagawa-winning novel of body modification.
Lui is nineteen and drifts around Shibuya without any sense of being alive. At a club she meets Ama, who has a red mohawk, rings through his brow and lip, a dragon tattooed on his back and a tongue split like a snake's, and she moves in with him. Wanting a split tongue of her own, she goes with him to the shop of Shiba, a tattooist and piercer covered in ink and metal, who pierces her tongue and tells her he is a sadist, excited by the faces of people in pain. Lui begins stretching the hole, and finds a kind of rapture in the pain.
One night Lui, Ama and her friend Maki are harassed in the street by men who look like gangsters. Ama beats one of them savagely and hands Lui two of the man's teeth as proof of his love. Lui asks Shiba to tattoo her whole back with a dragon and a kirin intertwined, and to leave their eyes blank so that, as in the old story of the painted dragon, they cannot fly away. Shiba asks for her body as his fee, and at every session they sleep together, behind Ama's back.
Then the news reports that the man Ama beat has died. Without telling him why, Lui dyes Ama's hair and makes him keep his tattoos covered. When the tattoo is finished, whatever was holding her up gives way. She drinks, feels alive only in pain, and wonders which of the two men will kill her. The police call Shiba's shop asking about a red-haired customer with a dragon tattoo.
Ama disappears. Trying to report him missing, Lui realises she does not even know his real name. Days later his body is found: he was tortured, raped and killed. Shiba takes her in. Living in his house, she notices that the rare incense and the brand of cigarettes left on Ama's body are Shiba's. She crushes Ama's two teeth and swallows them. She asks Shiba to fill in the eyes of the dragon and the kirin, and he does. She stops stretching her tongue. The split is never finished; only a large hole remains.
Starring
Yuriko Yoshitakaas Lui
A 19-year-old drifting through Shibuya who feels alive only in pain, and throws herself into piercing and tattooing.
Lui’s story
Lui moves in with Ama for his split tongue, has her own pierced at Shiba's shop and starts stretching the hole. She asks Shiba to ink Ama's dragon and Shiba's own kirin across her back, their eyes left blank so that they cannot fly away, pays him with sex and keeps it from Ama. When the man Ama beat is reported dead, she dyes Ama's hair and makes him cover his tattoos. Once the tattoo is finished she drinks instead of eating and brushes off Ama's worry. After he is found murdered she moves in with Shiba, notices that the incense and the cigarettes found on Ama's body are his, and stays. She swallows Ama's two teeth, has the eyes filled in, stops stretching her tongue, and is last seen crouching alone in a Shibuya crowd.
Kengo Koraas Ama
A punk with a red mohawk and a split tongue, tender with Lui and violent towards anyone who threatens her.
Ama’s story
Ama has a red mohawk, a dragon on his back and a tongue split like a snake's, and with Lui he is gentle and eager to please. He takes her to Shiba's shop to have her tongue pierced. When men harass her in the street, he beats one of them savagely and gives her two of the man's teeth as proof of his love. He never finds out that the man has died, and does as he is told when Lui dyes his hair and has him cover his tattoos. He worries as she stops eating and drinks, and calls her if his shift runs even a little late. One night he does not come home, and Lui finds she does not even know his real name. Days later he is found dead: tortured, raped and killed.
Arataas Shiba
A tattooist and piercer who calls himself a sadist, and takes Lui's body as the price of her tattoo.
Shiba’s story
Shiba tells Lui on her first visit to his shop that the faces of people in pain excite him. He pierces her tongue, warns her that stretching it too fast will make it swell, and agrees to put Ama's dragon and his own kirin on her back, sleeping with her at every session behind Ama's back. He tells her the police have asked him about a red-haired customer with a dragon tattoo. When Ama disappears, he helps her report him missing; when Ama is found dead, he takes her into his home and looks after her. The rare incense and the brand of cigarettes left on the body are the ones he keeps. At her request, he inks in the eyes.
Yu Abiruas Maki
Lui's friend, who is with her and Ama on the night Ama beats a man in the street.
Why it matters
Snakes and Earrings follows a young woman who can feel alive only when something hurts, and it neither judges her for it nor treats it as a phase. Hitomi Kanehara's debut novel won the Akutagawa Prize, sold more than a million copies in Japan and has been read as a portrait of post-bubble Japanese youth. The film keeps what is hardest in the book: the tongue stretched a little further each day, the tattoo paid for with sex, a sadist who is gentle only once she is broken. Lui consents at every step, and consent is still not the whole story, because what she keeps agreeing to is a way of disappearing. The ending leaves her living with the man the evidence points to as Ama's killer, the eyes inked and the pain given up, and does not say whether she has survived something or simply stopped.