David
01-27-2005, 12:33 PM
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What a masterly film! "Kwaidan" is like walking through an Old World museum: Kobayashi, the director, has the compositional eye & feel for color that you find in the Great Masters, like Rembrandt & Velasquez. There are scenes here that are literally among the most beautiful I've ever seen. The four episodes -- or tales -- are linked by a pervasive sense of cosmic dread & doom. In one or two of the tales, Mother Nature seems to be seeking redress for the wrongs of mankind. In the others, moral shortcomings presage spectral visitations, like Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." This film is regarded as a horror film only in its widest possible sense; this isn't slasher movie material filled with cheap shocks & bloodletting. These are tales (written by an American in the 19th century who went to live in Japan) more akin to the tales of Dickens, Saki ("The Open Window") & Poe ("Descent into the Maelstrom"). Each filmic tale is stately & lush, & virtually every scene is filmed on a soundstage. The music & sound were all post-synched, & add to the dreamlike atmosphere. It's a twilight world. (I think "Kwaidan" was enormously influential on Kurosawa's "Dreams" & even some of the later Tarkovsky films.)
If Ozu ("Tokyo Story") is the heart of Japanese cinema, Kobayashi is one of its greatest eyes. I recommend you add this to your NetFlix queue.
What a masterly film! "Kwaidan" is like walking through an Old World museum: Kobayashi, the director, has the compositional eye & feel for color that you find in the Great Masters, like Rembrandt & Velasquez. There are scenes here that are literally among the most beautiful I've ever seen. The four episodes -- or tales -- are linked by a pervasive sense of cosmic dread & doom. In one or two of the tales, Mother Nature seems to be seeking redress for the wrongs of mankind. In the others, moral shortcomings presage spectral visitations, like Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." This film is regarded as a horror film only in its widest possible sense; this isn't slasher movie material filled with cheap shocks & bloodletting. These are tales (written by an American in the 19th century who went to live in Japan) more akin to the tales of Dickens, Saki ("The Open Window") & Poe ("Descent into the Maelstrom"). Each filmic tale is stately & lush, & virtually every scene is filmed on a soundstage. The music & sound were all post-synched, & add to the dreamlike atmosphere. It's a twilight world. (I think "Kwaidan" was enormously influential on Kurosawa's "Dreams" & even some of the later Tarkovsky films.)
If Ozu ("Tokyo Story") is the heart of Japanese cinema, Kobayashi is one of its greatest eyes. I recommend you add this to your NetFlix queue.