Tuwa's Shanty and The Roots Canal

Tuesday, October 31, 2006:

The Orb, Neko again, Kwaidan

The Orb -- Ghostdancing
Neko Case -- Ghost Wiring
Kwaidan is a quartet of ghost stories directed by Masaki Kobayashi based on Lafcadio Hearn's adaptations of Japanese legends. Often classed a horror film, it's not especially horrifying: the stories are simple, the pacing deliberate, and for a gaijin audience the resolutions are predictable (whereas for a Japanese audience, there's less need for prediction: people in the audience unfamiliar with the legends would still know that the film's title means "ghost story").

In the first segment, "The Black Hair," a samurai leaves his devoted wife to marry a woman from a prestigious family, then realises both her selfishness and his own and returns to his first wife. In the second, "The Woman of the Snow," a woodcutter sees his companion killed by Yuki-onna, the spirit of winter; she spares him on the condition that he never tell anyone what he's seen. In the third, "Hoichi the Earless," a blind biwa player is approached by samurai ghosts and ordered to play for a long-dead audience. In the fourth and final segment, "In a Cup of Tea," a samurai finds that whenever he pours himself a bowl of water, it always reflects a man who isn't there.

Though the film fails to terrify, its pleasures lie elsewhere: Kobayashi gifts the stories with a painstaking visual sense, favoring bold composition:








He films in the studio and uses blatant backdrops in outdoor scenes:




He makes use of theatrical lighting:




Colors are carefully controlled, often dominated by neutrals, and with only a few accents outside the dominant color scheme:









The Criterion Collection's essay on Kwaidan
[The Orb -- Cydonia]
[Neko Case -- Blacklisted]

Labels: alt country, electronica, horror, movies

posted by Tuwa @ 15:50 | permalink |