Kwaidan

1964 ****

When Catfreeek reviewed Onibaba I started to write a long comment about Kwaidan, which I saw in a Japanese Literature and Film class I took in college. Then I thought: jeez, I'll just watch it.

Literally translated as "Scary Ghost Story," Kwaidan is an anthology movie of four Japanese folk tales. At the time it was the most expensive production in the history of Japanese cinema, and it won the Jury Special Prize at Cannes. I saw it almost twenty years ago, and I still remembered the amazing opening titles, which were the images of dye dropped in water that you see here, set to minimalist music.

The tales themselves are not too elaborate; I won't go into them at length so I don't ruin the endings. The stars of this movie are the images, and so I've winnowed down the 120 or so screenshots I kept as screensaver fodder to a couple of favorites. I'll let them do most of the talking. Click on any of them you want to see larger.

The Black Hair

A samurai without prospects lives with his wife in what counts as poverty, although I'm sure his house and yard would be worth a mint now. He seizes an opportunity to take a faraway governing post, but to do so he must divorce his wife and marry the daughter of a rich nobleman.

As the years go by, the samurai grows more and more regretful about leaving his first wife, as his new one is vain and shallow. (She also dyes her teeth black, which was a genuine practice of Japanese nobility long ago but damn does it look freaky.)

When the terms of his post allow him to leave, he returns to his old house to seek reconciliation. Here I end my summary, but note that there's a wonderfully evocative bit of sound design in this story; the noise of crumbling, decaying wood signifying age and loss and regret. The sound came when there seemed to be no corresponding visual, and at first I thought there was some technical difficulty, but then I figured it out.

The Woman of the Snow

This was my favorite story because I loved the expressionistic backgrounds. It begins with an old woodsman and his younger apprentice beset by a vicious snowstorm.

As they struggle through the pounding wind, they don't notice the obvious menace that watches over them.

The younger man is temporarily separated and wanders deliriously across the surreal landscape. You can see why I grooved on this. Despite the fact these are all clearly interior sets, the effect is wonderful.

The second part of the story takes place in the summertime, and while the mood is completely different, the imagery is no less strange.

Getting into the plot of this one at all would be too much, so just groove on this trippy sun, man.


Hoichi the Earless

A young, blind, very talented biwa player is taken in by a monastery near the site of a legendary battle. (The battle is an actual piece of Japanese history, and is also referenced in Carl Sagan's show Cosmos, since the legend is linked to the crabs in the area whose shells look like samurai faces.)

One night while sitting outside, Hoichi is ordered by a gruff samurai to perform for his master. Hoichi complies, and the samurai leads the blind man to a mystical palace.

I'm not ruining anything to tell you that Hoichi has been suckered by a bunch of ghosts, no less than the same 700-year-dead heroes of the legendary songs he chants. He's actually sitting in a graveyard, the dupe.

In a Cup of Tea

A narrator explains that this is an unfinished tale, about a samurai who keeps trying to drink some water but this creepy guy is reflected in each bowl he tries, looking at him and smirking.

This sucks. I wish someone would invent soda already.
I can't ruin the ending of this story because it doesn't have one, but I was once again wowed by some more great images. The interior of the palace the samurai guards is a great example of the Japanese tendency towards quiet, stunning perfection.




Kwaidan was a treat to revisit. While not actually scary at all, the presentation is an excellent peek into the storytelling culture that decades later would invent J-horror and scare us out of our collective pants (black hair, anyone?).

It does come with a Horrorthon warning, however, as it is both long and slow. It took Julie and me a couple of nights to get through it, because we kept falling asleep. Hoichi the Earless is a particular hurdle, thanks to the long scenes of Hoichi strumming his biwa and chanting. Nevertheless, it's a feast for the eyes and a genuine piece of horror cinema history, and I give it a hearty table-thumping.