The History of Japanese Horror Cinema - Essay Example

Japanese Horror Cinema In what ways can the [Onibaba] extract be thought of as allegory for Japanese culture and society? [Start: the daughter-in-law returns to the hunt; End: the old woman jumps over the burial pit] Shindos 1964 Onibaba is a dark, tense, and cinematically gripping sojourn into a fantastical but psychologically resonant world where erotic impulses and ruthless imperatives of self-preservation dominate human action. By transposing it to war-ravaged medieval Japan and brazenly saturating it with sexuality, Shindo has transformed a cautionary Buddhist parable into a harrowing and uncanny tale of disastrously colliding compulsions. Awaiting the return of her husband, a young woman and her mother-in-law survive by killing and then selling the equipment of weakened and disoriented warriors who stray into the vicinity of their hut. When a neighbor, one of the husbands companions in battle, returns, a calamitous struggle ensues in which jealous rage and sexual frenzy inexorably lead to a memorably lurid conclusion. The picture and sound quality are superb; disc extras include an illuminating interview with Shindo and on-location footage. For mature audiences. Highly recommended for academic and larger collections. During the 1960s, the film director and screenwriter Shind¯o Kaneto produced for the first time a companion jidai geki (historical drama) film – Onibaba (1964), in both of which a woman and her daughterin-law prey upon lone samurai. In these films Shind¯o uses existing traditional narratives and stage techniques to produce entirely original films. Prior to these films, Shind¯o had produced only gendai geki (contemporary-life drama) films with strong social orientation.1 In an interview with Joan Mellen, he ascribes these two jidai geki films to his previous social awareness, and interprets them as jidai geki films about the lower classes and outcasts, rather than the usual protagonists of this genre, lords and samurai (Mellen 1975: 80–94). In these latter films he wished to capture the immense energy of the common people for survival. Shind¯o even attributes the tall vegetation presented in both films (susuki grass in Onibaba) as a symbol of the world of high society that surrounds the poor and the wretched, hiding them from the eyes of the aristocracy and the politicians. Looking at society through the eyes of those condemned to its bottom rung forces the spectator to experience everything through the lens of the political struggle between classes (Mellen 1975: 80). Although Shind¯o places most of the themes in these two films within social and political contexts, several scholars have related them to other aspects, such as eroticism and horror (Mellen 1976: 108–12; Galbraith 1994: 105–8). My contention here is that both films also have clear traditional roots to an even greater extent than that which usually exists in jidai geki. There is a tendency among Western scholars of Japanese cinema to debate the methodology to be used in this field. Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro recently expressed his concern regarding the correct definitions and discipline to be used for Japanese cinema studies in the Western academic world, and analyzed the various problems in this field (Yoshimoto 2000: 7–49). Since the Second World War several trends have dominated research on Japanese cinema. Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie, authors of The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, which was published originally in 1959 and was the first English book on Japanese cinema (Anderson and Richie 1982), head the school of thought which perceives Japanese films as a reflection of various Japanese cultural elements. At the other pole, there are scholars who look for the ways in which Japanese films are different from or even opposed to Western films, and tend to mould Japanese concepts and culture in a way that matches their own perceptions of cinema. No¨el Burch’s study of Japanese cinema, for example, is concerned with the ‘essential difference between the dominant modes ofWestern and Japanese cinema’ (Burch 1979: 11). Darrell William Davis supports yet a third approach, which he calls ‘contamination’, that looks at cinema as a syncretistic medium that reflects the culture but at the same time is constituted in relation to other cinemas (Davis 2001: 63–7). Any methodological generalization of researching Japanese cinema can be misleading since different Japanese films demand different approaches; not only does the study of different Japanese directors demand specific methodology, but sometimes distinct approaches are also essential for different films by an individual director. Of particular interest is the quintessential theme of a human being vanquishing a demonic threat. Shind¯ o, as we shall see, employs existing traditional narratives and stage techniques that constitute a very important performative embodiment of the ritualistic demonic pattern, borrowed from the traditional aristocratic noh and popular kabuki theatres, sources that have also served other Japanese film directors. The Japanese traditional theatre, especially noh, presents two kinds of demonic being. Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443), the consolidator and most important master in noh history, divides the noh demons into two contrasting types. One type is a human being whose circumstances cause it to take on the form of a demon with a human heart, who does not have supernatural powers and whose suffering reflects human wickedness. Zeami classified such a demon as said¯of ¯u (unsteady type) (Omote and Kat ¯o 1974: 128). This type of demon is eventually overcome by a protective entity such as a powerful priest or a warrior. The extent of the demonic aspect manifested in the human being is varied in the plays through different kinds of demonic masks and through the modes of performance. The second type of demonic being is that of a real demonic monster with supernatural powers, classified by Zeami as rikid¯of ¯u (powerful type) (Omote and Kat ¯o 1974: 129). This is the most common pattern, and it starts with the appearance of the demon in disguise; then, after a short interlude, the demon returns in its true form before eventually being vanquished by a powerful priest or a warrior. In both cases the demonic being is vanquished but is not killed on stage. Noh, however, never combines the two patterns. In contrast, Shind¯o combines both patterns in Kuroneko and Onibaba. In Kuroneko he successively combines the traditional components of a real demon disguised as a human being and the human-demon type, while adding a modern dramatic human aspect. In Onibaba he makes innovative and modern use of the tradition of a human being whose circumstances cause him/her to become a demon, but there is also a hint of the real demon. In so doing, Shind¯o has created very original and complex narratives of the quintessential Japanese ritualistic embodiment of vanquishing a demonic threat. Kurosawa Akira, for instance, in his eight-episode film Yume (Dreams, 1990) includes two episodes in which he treats the two patterns separately, presenting the evil Snow Woman (yuki onna) as a real demon in ‘The Blizzard’, and presenting a human demon in ‘The Weeping Demon’, similarly to the individual appearance of these patterns in the noh repertoire (Serper 2001a: 96–8). Shind¯ o, however, innovatively merges these two patterns together in both his films. Works Cited Anderson, Joseph L. and Richie, Donald (1982) The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Burch, No¨el (1979) To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema, London: Scolar Press. Davis, Darrell William (2001) ‘Reigniting Japanese Tradition with Hana-Bi’, Cinema Journal 40(4): 55–80. Mellen, Joan (1975) ‘Interview with Kaneto Shind¯ o’, Voices from the Japanese Cinema, New York: Liveright, pp. 80–94. Mellen, Joan (1976) The Waves at Genji’s Door: Japan through its Cinema, New York: Pantheon Books. Omote Akira and Kat ¯o Sh¯uichi (eds) (1974) Zeami, Zenchiku ([Writings of] Zeami and Zenchiku), Vol. 24 of Nihon shis¯o taikei (Anthology of Japanese ideology), Tokyo: Iwanami shoten. Yoshimoto Mitsuhiro (2000) Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Read More