Petrel Hotel Blue is a surreal crime film by Koji Wakamatsu. It is a tale of revenge. The beginnings of the film point to a more conventional story of criminals sent to jail for robbery. Some of the cohorts abandon the plan before it even starts. There are elements of greed, loyalty and revenge all which point the main character to the Cordon Bleu café where his unreliable former partner in crime works.

            There he meets Rika, a silent chain smoker, sitting at the bar of the Cordon Bleu in all of her mysterious glory. Men in the film are attracted to her inexplicably. Perhaps this is a supernatural talent of hers, as she seems to be a ghost. She is in fact the owner of the Cordon Bleu’s reason for staying away from the crime his friends were planning.

            The criminal’s motivations disappear after he deals with his disloyal friend.  Rika’s spell is cast over him and he becomes docile and hard working at the café. Only when suspicions by other men arise, does trouble come back to him. Men fight and kill over the beautiful Rika and her answer to this is that they are fools.

           

            I believe one central theme of the film is control. The film begins with a main character who holds incredible power over his followers so much so that one might give away their month’s earnings to him. The man who owns the Cordon Bleu would rather keep control over a respectable life and at the same time he is held captive by the desire he has for Rika and her otherworldly power over him.

            Wakamatsu's earlier works follow the theme of women being controlled by men. For example, in his film The Embryo Hunts in Secret from 1966 a man rapes and tortures his girlfriend until she breaks free from his captivity and kills him. As Wakamatsu himself explains, "...violence, the body and sex are an integral part of life" These ideas are explored in Petrel Hotel Blue as well. Rika is treated as simply a body and an object of sexual desire. She inspires a kind of hardworking ethic in the men she hypnotizes. They will do anything to keep her, even kill for her sake. Perhaps the funniest moment of the film is when a police officer shoots and kills a man for spying on Rika swimming naked. His reasoning is that "peeping is a crime" even though he himself was doing the same moments earlier.

             This kind of convenient morality and switching of character types is an interesting aspect of this film. The main criminal goes from the tough as nails type to a bartender diligently sweeping up his café. Rika creates a submissive character out of a once dominate force. Perhaps this extreme control she has over men is a reflection of her past.
             Although it is never explicitly explained, one can assume Rika is a ghost. Also, from the two separate instances when men approach an old woman on the road leading to the Cordon Bleu, Rika's form is confusingly cut between shots of the old woman. She explains that she was brought to the area as a girl and has been there ever since. Perhaps this is Rika's story. As she disappears into a gravestone at the end of the film one can assume from her clues that she might have been murdered or forced to live in the area, by men?, until her death.
             Despite the fact that the film beings with a criminal's revenge story, I believe that the main act of revenge is perpetrated by Rika. Somehow she haunts the area where she died and captivates men, leading them to their deaths. Men fall for her sexual charms and mysterious nature and she punishes them for this blind desire.