Kaneto Shindo Movie Analysis

6. Onibaba (Kaneto Shindo, 1964)

In 14th century Japan, a man is forced to enlist the army, leaving his wife and his mother alone in their house in the swamp. In order to survive, the women ambushes passing soldiers, kills them and subsequently sells their belongings to a greedy merchant. Nevertheless, the wife initiates an affair with a deserter, enraging her mother-in-law who no longer trusts her. Things take aturn for the even worse, when a mask stolen from a murdered samurai proves to have a demon residing in it.

Kaneto Shindo shoots the film exclusively in a swamp, where the protagonists live their own hell. Water, canes and mud constitute an environment that, when combined with the black and white cinematography and the long, internal pauses results in a silent nightmare. Shindo presents a movie concerning the worse of human

Many beautiful women audition, there is only one though that truly stirs his heart, Asami Yamazaki. The young woman states that she is an ex ballet dancer who was lately working for a music producer. Yoshikawa warns Shigeharu to be careful, since he was not able to cross check Asami’s background, but he is already blinded by love.

The film begins in the usual Japanese style, with hypnotic rhythm, scarce dialogue, almost no music and permeating realism both in the environment it takes place and in the characters. The first hour particularly does not look like a horror film at all, but rather like an indifferent social film.

Ηοwever, the actual and sole purpose of the rest of the film is just to bring the spectator into a state of utter unpreparedness for the grotesque incidents that occur in its last part, that are as terrifying and perverse, as one would expect from the onerous fantasies of both Murakami and Miike.

1. Ringu (Hideo Nakata,