This odd but beautiful and haunting film has a mystical Japanese atmosphere in a European setting. Likewise the characters, setting and plot are all odd, beautiful, haunting and mysterious. The film seems to be about the relationship between memory and experience, and the physical objects which represent those memories and experiences.
The lead character Iris starts by having a traumatic industrial accident that severs the tip of her titular ring finger, which falls into and colours a bottle of lemonade. She moves to a port city, where she time-shares a hotel room with a sailor working the night shift on the adjacent docks. They don't meet, but they "know" each other and interact through their possessions left in the hotel room, and develop a mutual but unrequited fascination for each other.
Iris by chance finds a new job as a receptionist in a bizarre laboratory. The business of the laboratory is to preserve and store (i.e. embalm and inter) specimens (i.e. mementos) of painful memories, so that the owners can find closure and move on. The creepy lab director, who runs the business essentially by himself, takes an erotic interest in her, and gives her a pair of perfectly-fitting attractive red shoes that he insists she always wears.
From then on, the film doesn't really develop further in terms of character or plot. This may frustrate some viewers, but it makes the film so unique and memorable. Instead it develops in bizarre and unexpected ways this theme of preserving specimens. We learn that the lab is a former girls boarding school, and that two former boarders still live in two of the few rooms not yet used as catacombs for the specimens. Both are practitioners of obsolete trades - one a pianist, the other a switchboard operator. Both are old women, yet still retain a strangely ageless girlish appearance. One has a class photo in her room from the boarding school days, which happens to show a still youthful looking lab director. Perhaps they are ex-lovers of the director. There are a couple of mild hints that the women may be ghosts. For example, one of the women suddenly appears and stares at Iris from behind while Iris explains to a potential client on the phone that specimens can't be taken of a malevolent shadow, then rapidly moves away just before Iris looks behind. An unexplained young boy also wanders the corridors, making sudden entrances and exits.
Despite what Iris said, the lab makes specimens of surprising things. One client wants a specimen of a music score given by a former boyfriend - not the score itself, but the sounds. The director gets the pianist in room 209 to play the music, then places the score in a labelled plastic container, without apparently recording it.
The director seduces Iris in the lab's cool inner sanctum, the boarding school's former bathing area and swimming pool, where he earlier gave her the shoes. He tells her of the girls who filled this once wet space with talk and laughter, yet it is now dry, empty and silent. Iris later dreams of herself showering among the voluble girls. Or is it a dream? One young client, who at the start of the movie had ordered a specimen of fungus growing on the ruins of her burned-down house, returns to ask for another specimen - this time the burn on her cheek. To Iris's shock, the director agrees after explaining to the client that healing a burn and taking a specimen of it are not the same thing. He takes the girl to the preserving room in the basement where Iris is not permitted, as only specimens are permitted there. The lab director does not return for the rest of the day, and a perturbed Iris repeatedly presses her ear to the basement door. Later while screwing Iris, the director asks Iris if she wants a specimen taken. Iris after some denial and hesitation suggests her mutilated ring finger.
An old rasta client who works as a shoe shiner (another obsolete craft) compliments Iris's red shoes, but warns her that the red shoes are cursed, and she should not wear them too often. He invites her to visit his shoeshine stand at the station. While wandering the catacombs and looking at specimens during an idle moment, Iris sees a photo of a young girl (possibly the burn victim) also wearing the distinctive red shoes. The former switchboard operator casually mentions to Iris that Iris's predecessors in the receptionist job all suddenly disappeared without a word of warning. When Iris takes up the shoeshiner's invitation, he warns her that she should get a specimen of the shoes, as she will never be free if she doesn't take them off. Iris replies that she doesn't want to be free, to which the shoeshiner replies that he will never see her again. After returning to the lab she accidentally drops a client's mahjong set (a philosophical representation of the universe), and on the director's instruction spends the rest of the night slowly picking up the pieces and reassembling them in their rightful place. Accepting her fate, she takes off the shoes, and walks into the basement where only specimens are permitted.
In concordance with the film's themes of preservation and timelessness, the film is set in the recent past, but apart from being obviously European is geographically and chronologically non-specific. The container terminal places it after the 1950's, and the lack of computers and mobiles places it before the mid-1990's, but all other markers of time and place are carefully removed.
The lead character Iris starts by having a traumatic industrial accident that severs the tip of her titular ring finger, which falls into and colours a bottle of lemonade. She moves to a port city, where she time-shares a hotel room with a sailor working the night shift on the adjacent docks. They don't meet, but they "know" each other and interact through their possessions left in the hotel room, and develop a mutual but unrequited fascination for each other.
Iris by chance finds a new job as a receptionist in a bizarre laboratory. The business of the laboratory is to preserve and store (i.e. embalm and inter) specimens (i.e. mementos) of painful memories, so that the owners can find closure and move on. The creepy lab director, who runs the business essentially by himself, takes an erotic interest in her, and gives her a pair of perfectly-fitting attractive red shoes that he insists she always wears.
From then on, the film doesn't really develop further in terms of character or plot. This may frustrate some viewers, but it makes the film so unique and memorable. Instead it develops in bizarre and unexpected ways this theme of preserving specimens. We learn that the lab is a former girls boarding school, and that two former boarders still live in two of the few rooms not yet used as catacombs for the specimens. Both are practitioners of obsolete trades - one a pianist, the other a switchboard operator. Both are old women, yet still retain a strangely ageless girlish appearance. One has a class photo in her room from the boarding school days, which happens to show a still youthful looking lab director. Perhaps they are ex-lovers of the director. There are a couple of mild hints that the women may be ghosts. For example, one of the women suddenly appears and stares at Iris from behind while Iris explains to a potential client on the phone that specimens can't be taken of a malevolent shadow, then rapidly moves away just before Iris looks behind. An unexplained young boy also wanders the corridors, making sudden entrances and exits.
Despite what Iris said, the lab makes specimens of surprising things. One client wants a specimen of a music score given by a former boyfriend - not the score itself, but the sounds. The director gets the pianist in room 209 to play the music, then places the score in a labelled plastic container, without apparently recording it.
The director seduces Iris in the lab's cool inner sanctum, the boarding school's former bathing area and swimming pool, where he earlier gave her the shoes. He tells her of the girls who filled this once wet space with talk and laughter, yet it is now dry, empty and silent. Iris later dreams of herself showering among the voluble girls. Or is it a dream? One young client, who at the start of the movie had ordered a specimen of fungus growing on the ruins of her burned-down house, returns to ask for another specimen - this time the burn on her cheek. To Iris's shock, the director agrees after explaining to the client that healing a burn and taking a specimen of it are not the same thing. He takes the girl to the preserving room in the basement where Iris is not permitted, as only specimens are permitted there. The lab director does not return for the rest of the day, and a perturbed Iris repeatedly presses her ear to the basement door. Later while screwing Iris, the director asks Iris if she wants a specimen taken. Iris after some denial and hesitation suggests her mutilated ring finger.
An old rasta client who works as a shoe shiner (another obsolete craft) compliments Iris's red shoes, but warns her that the red shoes are cursed, and she should not wear them too often. He invites her to visit his shoeshine stand at the station. While wandering the catacombs and looking at specimens during an idle moment, Iris sees a photo of a young girl (possibly the burn victim) also wearing the distinctive red shoes. The former switchboard operator casually mentions to Iris that Iris's predecessors in the receptionist job all suddenly disappeared without a word of warning. When Iris takes up the shoeshiner's invitation, he warns her that she should get a specimen of the shoes, as she will never be free if she doesn't take them off. Iris replies that she doesn't want to be free, to which the shoeshiner replies that he will never see her again. After returning to the lab she accidentally drops a client's mahjong set (a philosophical representation of the universe), and on the director's instruction spends the rest of the night slowly picking up the pieces and reassembling them in their rightful place. Accepting her fate, she takes off the shoes, and walks into the basement where only specimens are permitted.
In concordance with the film's themes of preservation and timelessness, the film is set in the recent past, but apart from being obviously European is geographically and chronologically non-specific. The container terminal places it after the 1950's, and the lack of computers and mobiles places it before the mid-1990's, but all other markers of time and place are carefully removed.