Director: Kaneto Shindo
Rating: 9 out of 10
Japanese. Samurai. Horror. Criterion. You don't know what those words mean to me. I will watch almost any film with any one of those tags, but a film that encompasses all 4?? I'm in Heaven. In the same way that I was hoping to open a door to Ingmar Bergman by writing about Hour of the Wolf, I am hoping to pull back the curtain on Japanese and Criterion films. The Criterion Collection is a series of films that are bought, restored, given the complete special edition treatment, and released with a pretty high price tag through Janus Films. If the film has the Criterion Collection logo, chances are it's one or all of the following: experimental, brilliant, engrossing, or amazing. I've watched 45 of their titles and I haven't been left disappointed yet. Check them out, please.
The film is set in feudal Japan and follows two peasant women, a older woman and her daughter-in-law, scratching out a living in a barren marsh by murdering lost samurai warriors and selling their belongings for food. The terrain is covered in miles and miles of 7 or 8 foot tall reeds, the same as an endless corn field in America. The sudden reappearance of a man who went off to battle with the older woman's son/younger girl's husband throws their system out of whack. They learn that their beloved has been slain trying to make his way home after escaping battle. The mother feels resentment towards the deserting soldier for returning without her son, while the widow seeks solace and freedom in the arms of this man, much to the chagrin of the angry mother who wishes not to lose her only companion. The widow sneaks out night after night for a roll in the sack with the solitary man, desperate to escape the grasp of the tyrannical mother. When mother finds out about the secret trysts, she goes to work mentally on the girl, trying to scare her with tales of demons and the fate of those who lustfully sin. It's pretty heavy psychological warfare, but she never lets on that she knows about the lovers' nightly meetings. During one such night, mother is approached by a most peculiar samurai: he claims to be a lost samurai general and wears a hideous mask that he refuses to take off. He demands the old woman show him the way out of the reeds, which she only accepts after the threat of death. Of course, she has other plans. Before long she has killed the samurai and torn the mask off him to reveal a scarred, burnt face underneath. So she steps up her assault on the poor girl: she exits their home every night, just waiting amongst the reeds for the young girl to run by on her way to her lover. As she approaches, mother pops out of the reeds in full attire: a large robe, long black hair, and the ghastly mask on her face, pretending to be a demon out to attack the lustful sinner.
I'm not going to go any further than that. It's a damn fine, if not simplistic, story, told with minimal characters and simply outstanding imagery. The mask itself is creepy, but the way it's lit makes it even worse. The lighting and cinematography is top-notch, often showing the beauty of the rustling reeds during an afternoon breeze and the fury of the angry marsh during a harsh storm at night. It feels like such a small story in the midst of a huge political time in Japan's history. In the same way America produces film after film about World War II with the plethora of large and small stories that took place during that time, Japan gets the most out of a tumultuous time from their history books. It feels like this could have happened. Large battles were being fought miles and miles, forcing people to live a macabre life far away from political strife in order to survive. People always talk about the horrors of battle, but this film presents the horrible reality of life as a result of war. Before the war, these people were farmers living contently off the land. War is hell, and these marshes might just be the very breeding grounds of evil.
By the way, there is a ton of nudity in this flick. In case that helps anyone or cues up some interest, there it is.
Next: A Nightmare on Elm Street
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