Horrorfest 2011: Kwaidan

What do you say we follow up a Japanese horror flick from 1964 with another Japanese horror flick from 1964? Despite the fact that it comes from the same time and place and belongs in the same genre, KWAIDAN couldn't be more different from ONIBABA. In fact, the two films are nearly opposites. Where ONIBABA is short, brutal, gritty, and black and white KWAIDAN is long, lyrical, lavish and in full blazing color. ONIBABA seems more contemporary and cutting edge for its time, while KWAIDAN feels like a throwback or even homage to the golden age of Hollywood. Most of ONIBABA takes place in natural locations while most of KWAIDAN takes place on giant indoor sets. And so on. The two movies even share an actor, Kei Sato, who has a major role in ONIBABA but only appears as a secondy character in KWAIDAN.

KWAIDAN is an anthology movie that spends just shy of 3 hours telling 4 different ghost stories. The first, THE BLACK HAIR, tells the tale of a poverty stricken samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) who is unhappy with his marriage and leaves his wife (Michiyo Aratama) for a more luxurious life. Unfortunately, the samurai is also unhappy in his new marriage, and heads home for a happy reunion with his first wife only to find that a ghastly change has taken place in his absence.

The next story, THE WOMAN IN THE SNOW, is about a woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) lost in a snow storm whose life is spared by an icy female spirit (Keiko Kishi) on the condition that he never tells anyone he has seen her. The woodcutter lives on to meet the girl of his dreams only to find out she's not who she seems.

In HOICHI THE EARLESS, we meet a blind minstrel named Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura) who is summoned by ghostly warriors to sing the ballads of their long lost wars. When the minstrel's masters attempt to protect him from the spirits, their plan backfires with ghoulish consequences.

The final story, IN A CUP OF TEA, is kind of a story within a story in which a writer imagines a tale of a samurai (Kan'emon Nakamura) who defiantly drinks a cup of tea containing the soul of another warrior (Noboru Nakaya) only to be tormented by mischievous ghosts. The story ends abruptly as we find out the writer of this story never finished his tale and that the supernatural elements may have crossed over into the real world.

While this movie is beautiful to look at and an undeniably amazing technical achievement, it is almost unbearably slow. Maybe it would have been better to watch one segment at a time over a few days, or maybe the first two segments in one sitting and the last two in another, because the near 3 hour running time definitely tried my patience. On top of the movie actually being long, it also relies almost entirely on moody suspense and long quiet set ups to make the horrific moments pay off, so this only drags the movie out even longer. I realize this kind of talk is probably bordering on heresy to some movie nerds, but I gotta tell it like I see it.

Still, I'm glad I saw the movie for some of its great images. Like I mentioned before, almost the whole thing is shot on extravagant, gigantic indoor sets. There isn't much attempt to make the sets look real -- they look more like something out of a fantasy (or nightmare) than anything you might see in real life, which is perfect for the film's themes. There are some pretty crazy background paintings depicting regular things, like sunsets, all the way to ominous evil eyes overlooking the action from above. There's also a cool-looking samurai battle at sea which never looks for a moment like it's not in a water tank on a studio set, but somehow benefits from this. It's almost like seeing a full color version of one of those expressionist silent flicks. The unique images even extend to the actors themselves, whose makeup changes depending on the height of their supernatural experiences. There's even poor Hoichi the minstrel who has Japanese characters painted on every inch of his body (except, notably, his ears).

KWAIDAN is a commitment to sit through, and you might have to take a few breaks, but if you ever get around to it you'll probably never see anything else like it. I know I haven't.