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Kwaidan - Criterion Collection Actors: Rentaro Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama Director: Masaki Kobayashi Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 164 minutes Studio: Criterion Collection Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2000-10-10 Buy from Amazon |
 "Elegant cinematography"Kobayashi captured the quintessence of the Japanese ghost story. It's amazing that a non Japanese , Lafacadio Hearn, wrote these stories.(I recommend reading him also). From the first credits ..to the end, we are watching a painting in motion. "One of a kind film."Spoilers --yes, it is important always to announce coming spoilers because there are still people who haven't seen this film. (After hearing about it for a decade, I hadn't seen it till this past week.) There is surely little I can add to what's already been said here about this film. So maybe what I have to say boils down to a YES vote for the pacing, atmosphere and story content of Kwaidan. But I will venture a few comments. Unlike some other reviewers, I don't consider the first two tales, Woman of the Snow and The Black Hair-- nor the last tale, In a Cup of Tea-- negligible. Your pulse and breathing slows, the pitch of your senses drops an octave and even time seems to step off its treadmill to oblivion as you enter into the warp and weft of Kwaidan through The Black Hair. Over all, the director showed great ingenuity in the way he 'shot around' moments that could have been sunk by the formative level of special effects at that time. (How many films of this vintage are ruined for modern viewers by the universal presence of the veritable zipper in the back of the monster suit? Nearly all. This film avoids that pitfall, and yet still manages to give you something awesome to look at. --In other words, the director didn't just lazily avert his camera's gaze, as low budget horror films of the time often do, and fall back on what became an abused old saw that "the audience can always supply stronger horrors in their mind than I could for them." The director gives us plenty to look at and remember visually later.) Woman of the Snow develops a poignant relationship between a wife-- who is not what she appears-- and her husband. Their story is sweet. You hope they prosper as a family, while you fear otherwise. A tone that is basically domestic and anti-horrific is set. When the serenity of their lives is climactically shattered, it is doubly hard to watch. You feel pity and sorrow for the man, and even for the monster, more than horror. There is no gore. A beautiful way of life is dissolved forever by a careless word, a moment of candor with a loved one that prompts unforeseeable consequences. That is real horror. Hoichi is probably the standout story, if only because it is given the full space in time for which storytelling at this sort of pace begs. The visual effects in those scenes involving Hoichi's visits to the dead are handled with incredible deftness. They are the best this pre-cgi, pre-morph technology era could have hoped to achieve and they still stand up amazingly. I fairly gasped when I saw these scenes.(The most beautiful use of what are essentially dissolves I have seen.) This segment makes some of the best use of silence and near silence also. As the ghost assaults Hoichi, there are sparse, muted musique concrete plocks and bings on the soundtrack. The effect is suffocating. No flurry of Wagnerian sturm und drang could have worked as well for this rending scene. After the breadth and luxury of the Hoichi segment, In a Cup of Tea may seem a little abrupt. This is not a bad thing. Hoichi was allowed enough latitude that they even managed some rare comic relief there. A Cup of Tea is a tart, terse afterword of a segment. It's like an episode of the half hour Alfred Hitchcock Presents in that it explodes the surprise at the very end, then exits with no comment at all. This is perfectly in keeping with Hearn's source stories or a John Collier or W.W. Jacobs short story. --Anything written in the form after Poe, really. Everything builds toward the final effect. If you haven't seen Kwaidan, I recommend it. You need a grey day, first of all, or a night to view it. You need to banish all your irreverant, overly-ironic friends who might surprise you and 'get it', but as likely won't. And you have to want to like it. If all these conditions are in place, I can almost guarantee you'll be very glad you invested the time in the film.  "only okey dokey..maybe."this film is 4 stories of japanese folklore told back to back and is filmed the just like the stories are read...that isn't always a good thing...the sets and the atmosphere are Awesome! Beautiful! But...It was super duper slow...there are not so much to the stories for them to be taking 30 minutes each...adding to the boredom, there is hardly any dialogue, just lots of cold stares from the actors...I own a couple of Japanese folklore books and the stories usually wont even last a whole page...the stories are very quick and very to the point....but the short films are not that great but very pretty...I wish these kind of sets were on more films....anyways...I regret spending this much money on the film... "Haunting classic"I first saw this film many years ago in a theater, and I have not forgotten its many memorable scenes and images. This is the kind of movie that will often baffle people used to traditional dramas. Some will criticize the fact that many of the scenes don't look real. Well, that may have been the whole point. I think the director, Masaki Kobayashi was trying to transport the moviegoer to another world, one that is both supernatural and surreal. There is a dreamlike quality to this movie, much like the films of Jean Cocteau. This is also a movie about the art of telling a story. As is often the case with storytelling, it's not the story itself that is important, but rather the WAY the story is told that captures our fancy. Take, for instance, one the film's best stories, "Hoichi the Earless." In the old Japan, the story of the Heike clan's demise was often recited by biwa hoshi, blind musician/singers who performed the work before audiences. It's this oral tradition that we encounter in the Hoichi story. The combination of the storyteller's dramatic recitation of the Heike clan's last stand and Kobayashi's hauntingly beautiful images is simply mesmerizing. You may not come away liking this movie as much as I do. But you should see it at least once in your lifetime. If you are like me, this film will stay with you for a very long time. "The definitve art film masterpiece"This film leaves the viewer exhausted. You will keep asking, "What is the truth" . Kurosawa has created a masterpiece that many films try to emulate to this day, but will never approach. Like an artist he paints the scenery with contrasts. Powerful performances by all the actors, and the action never ceases it just builds from the begining to end. |
