Kwaidan.

Review #1900: Kwaidan.

Cast: 

"The Black Hair" [Kurokami]: Michiyo Aratama (First Wife), Misako Watanabe (Second Wife), Rentarō Mikuni (Husband), Kenjiro Ishiyama (Father), and Ranko Akagi (Mother); "The Woman of the Snow" [Yuki-Onna]: Tatsuya Nakadai (Minokichi), Keiko Kishi (the Yuki-Onna), and Yūko Mochizuki (Minokichi's mother); "Hoichi the Earless" [Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi]: Katsuo Nakamura (Hoichi), Tetsurō Tamba (Warrior), Takashi Shimura (Head priest), Yoichi Hayashi (Minamoto no Yoshitsune), Kazuo Kitamura (Taira no Tomomori), Yōsuke Kondō (Benkei); "In a Cup of Tea" [Chawan no naka]: Haruko Sugimura (Madame), Osamu Takizawa (Author / Narrator), Nakamura Ganjirō II (Publisher), Noboru Nakaya (Shikibu Heinai), Seiji Miyaguchi (Old man),Kei Satō (Ghost samurai) Directed by Masaki Kobayashi.

Review: 

"My main intention was to explore the juxtaposition between man's material nature and his spiritual nature, the realm of dream and aspiration. I wanted to create a drama which dealt directly with the spiritual importance of our lives. I also enjoyed conveying the sheer beauty of traditional Japan."

Admittedly, there aren't that many three-hour anthology films to go around. This seemed right just the right feature to do when it comes to talking about the 1960s and in talking about a new director as well. Masaki Kobayashi started his career a bit later than usual directors. He was 36 when he made his debut, having studied at Waseda University to study art before aspiring to work in film before being drafted by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. He returned from the war and worked as assistant director. His most noted features came because of his war experiences with The Human Condition trilogy (No Greater Love (1959), Road to Eternity (1959), A Soldier's Prayer (1961)). He directed twenty films in the span of 33 years before he died at the age of 80 in 1996. The book is based on Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, a 1904 book by Lafcadio Hearn that was a collection of several ghost stories that were based off either old Japanese texts or experiences lived by the author (of course, there also is a section to close out the book that includes insect study by the author, where he connects them to Chinese and Japanese beliefs). Hearn was born on a Greek island before he eventually was raised in Ireland through a series of parental abandonments; when living with his aunt as a teenager, he had an accident that gave him both poor vision and the loss of his eye. He moved to the United States at 19 (being told to have good luck with $5) and worked in the newspaper business in both Cincinnati and New Orleans before moving abroad to work as a correspondent in the French West Indies before he finally found a true home in Japan, where he lived out the last fourteen years of his life (his exploits as a writer led to a museum alongside preservation of his residence in Matsue). The film uses the same spelling of a term that is actually known as Kaidan, since the old term is actually an archaic spelling of the term. Incidentally, there were versions of the film release that cut down the film to either 160 minutes or two hours, notably by cutting "The Woman of the Snow" when it came to release it in America, although nowadays you can find releases with it intact. It was filmed in TohoScope by cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima, who had worked with Kobayashi on the aforementioned Condition trilogy among others, and Toru Takemitsu (a mostly self-taught composer with numerous noted works in his time) provides the musical score, which results in a soothing and eerie and atmospheric film.

Sure, Kobayashi may state that he made a drama, but this is a horror movie through and through, one that looks at how people approach spirituality where the dead seem more alive than the living. Sometimes, you have to understand folklore beyond just the literal meaning of the words The movie is quite colorful for one that is also pretty mournful in its telling of ghost stories that work out for varying quality of elegance. The first tale in "The Black Hair" (roughly 36 minutes) is a decent one to start things off with, albeit one that relies on its narrator a bit much when compared to the next two stories. "The Woman of the Snow" (32 minutes) might be the most diverting of the stories when it comes to refreshing climaxes.  It is the most soulful of the works, which all go at their own pace to dwell in the macabre without needing to be outright spooky. "Hoichi the Earless" (74 minutes long) is the longest of the stories and probably the most poetic to focus on with pictorial beauty when it shows a ballad of a battle. Sure, the title might give you a clue about the character to follow, but it still makes for a suitable story in haunting elegance, right down to its climax. "In a Cup of Tea" (25 minutes) is a riff on what happens if a ghost story is "unfinished", to varying results. It probably is the lesser of all the stories told, mostly because it tries to play it both ways with the climax along with being the shortest of the stories despite its interesting premise (drinking one's soul in tea) that will either fall as challengingly abrupt or just an okay story. As a whole, it is the handling of folklore with reverence by Kobayashi that makes it a fascinating movie for those who have the time to spend with it.

The actors, tasked with a movie that dwells in quiet patience, do pretty well for what is needed. The Yuki-Onna is a spirit with many interpretations over the years, and Kishi makes a valuable presence in the story with haunting grace. Mikuni makes a suitable cad to go against Aratama and Watanabe in the art of desperation. Nakamura does well in holding his ballad together as a blind seer with worthy calmness. There is plenty of key highlights to think about, whether that involves a quieting climax of despair for the end of the first and second stories (each with a key realization) or how the third story manages to stay together for so long in eerie mystery. Even the fourth story, one with a bit of awareness about itself in offbeat sensibility, is still interesting to see play out to the true conclusion reached in where the spirits can take a person. It is a soothing movie that makes time seem to run as a state of mind, where illusions and reality swirl on their own pattern until all that remains is oblivion. As a whole, it is a great curiosity piece for those who wish to seek something a bit different from the usual anthology, one with conviction in its spirituality that achieves most what it sets to do in storytelling that would make an intriguing pick for the horror season.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.