Retro Review – two sides of the same coin

Reviews of:

• Kuroneko
• Onibaba

Great filmmakers often have themes central to their body of work and revisit them constantly. I’ve talked previously of Herzog and his obsession with obsession and revenge is a key ingredient of the Korean films discussed previously. Michael Haneke was either audacious or supremely arrogant to remake his provocative study on modern day voyeurship of violence, Funny Games. It was my considering of the rights and wrongs of this old provocateur which turned my mind to a man who made two films so identical in plot but light years apart in style and tone.

A saurai is lured to his death in Kuroneko

Kaneto Shindo is one of Japan’s most prolific filmmakers, a man known as much for his screenwriting prowess as for his skills in direction. His long career paired him alongside some of the country’s finest directors including Seijun Suzuki and Hiroshi Teshigahara, maker of the phenomenal Woman of the Dunes. His skills have been fertiliser to the creative work of these others, allowing their productions to flourish. Shindo however is a force of his own and has produced films of intense atmosphere and outstanding beautiful visuals. 1960’s The Naked Island gave the world an insight into Japanese rural life showing islanders as ants struggling with and against nature. His two masterpieces however came later, in 1964 and 1968 and are Onibaba and Kuroneko respectively.

The mother and daughter team dispose of some bodies in Onibaba

Folklore is an important element of Japanese life and is so often communicated through art, film being one well used channel. This traditional blend of Chinese demonology and Indian spiritualism has been popular throughout their cinematic history. These supernatural films even have their own genre, Kaidan. The word is even used in the titles of these movies, the Japanese title of Blind Woman’s Curse being a prime example. It’s a label allowing the audience to realise exactly what they’re getting into. Another genre is Jidai Geki which is a term for samurai related historical pieces. Shindo combined these film types for both Kuroneko and Onibaba to great effect. These films are like brother and sister, a narrative description makes them seem almost identical but it’s mood which separates the two. Shindo has given us two historical tales of revenge, both perpetrated by mother daughter teams. These women have a deserved grudge against a male dominated world which has wronged them.

Black Cats

One key difference is that in Onibaba our women are alive and well, a pair living a simple existence in a war torn world. In Kuroneko they die in the opening scene. For the remainder of the film they are ghosts, spirits returned to wreak vengeance on all samurai as payback for the fact they were raped and killed by these very men. These spirits lure men to their death with the promise of food drink and perhaps a little bit of slap and tickle. But it’s a different type of pussy they get as the women have become cat spirits and kill the men as a kitty would a mouse. The cat theme is often prominent in Japanese horror, there’s even a name for it as well, kaibyo meaning cat ghost. This brings me back to Blind Woman’s Curse (another 1960’s horror which is certainly worth tracking down)where a black cat torments poor Meiko Kaji as a harbinger of death. In Kuroneko the women themselves become cat demons and this is beautifully realised in particularly subtle and creative ways. The daughters ponytail flicks on its own accord as a cat’s tail would, she is also nimble and skips over water with feline grace. The mother laps from a water bowl and at one point her hand becomes a cat’s paw. It’s quite surreal and sounds ridiculous but Shindo handles it with such aesthetic grace that everything works perfectly. The first murder scene is a stylistic triumph. Traditional Japanese drum music builds in the background while the mother performs a gradually intensifying kabuki dance. The tension grows until the daughter pounces in deadly fashion. It’s a stunning piece of cinema.

The ladies of Onibaba hold less grace. They live simple, almost animalistic lives, farming and hunting. Passing samurai going to and from war are tricked and killed, their armour and weapons sold for profit, their bodies thrown into an ominous black hole. A male neighbour plunges their relationship into jealousy and turmoil. The younger couple have a feverish desire for each other while the mother fears her daughters desertion and a future alone. She requires the others help to murder the samurai and therefore needs her just to simply survive. Onibaba is not a supernatural tale but the fear of ghosts and spectres becomes an intrinsic part of the plot. Jealousy manifests itself through a demonic hoax which plays on the guilt felt by the daughter at her affair with the rougish neighbour. This ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’ scenario is common in film (handled with most skill recently in Asif Kapadia’s eerily beautiful Far North, with the ever amazing Michelle Yeoh) but Shindo truly manages to uncover the base emotions feeding the drama. Fear, lust, jealousy and hate are displayed visually, and it is these visuals in both films which combines them and at the same time separates.

Setting the Scene

internal demons in Onibaba

Onibaba takes place in a huge marsh of swaying reeds. This becomes a motif for the film, an indicator of the mood. Kuroneko trades these reeds in for a bamboo forest. Both are equally stunning settings and allow me to go all film school wanker by mentioning mise en scene. This theory relates to telling a story visually, creating a mood and a character which conveys meaning to the viewer. Shindo handles this majestically. Both films are worth watching for the photography alone, each black and white frame is an exquisite construction. I’ve added the trailers for both films at the bottom as proof of theor visual perfection. In many ways Kuroneko is a delicate graceful film, feline like the ghosts cats which inhabit it. It knows its protocol, uses the right cutlery and says the right things. Onibaba on the other hand has no need for manners. It’s hot and sweaty, its characters constantly unrobed, crude and animal. Instinct is followed rather than etiquette. The power of this mise en scene is such that we watch these two close stories but take away such different elements from each. Some directors make a wide range of films but each one has their same watermark, they say the same thing in the same voice. Shindo pulled of a masterstroke by recycling the narrative while telling two independent stories through mood and imagery. It’s not a case of style over substance, in these instances the style is the substance.