Reviews of Kwaidan
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lolo341
6Mar11
As if to convey the sentiment that spirits are a part of every day life, in Kwaidan there is no rhyme or reason as to why spirits appear or go away. For this reason alone, much of the horror is psychological. For example, the real horror of “Black Hair” is that the protagonist realizes he has wasted his life and there won’t be enough days to recover what he so callously tossed away in his youth. The second story, “The Woman of Snow” is one of my two favorites, both for the tale itself and for the acid-trip like set design. “Hoichi the Earless” is probably the piece de resistance of the quartet, which is interesting because it was originally edited out for U.S. distribution. Hoichi begans with a spectacular depiction of a battle between two warring clans. 700 years later, ghosts of the battle are drawn to a living, blind musician named Hoichi who has recently been taken in by priests at a Buddhist temple. The unfolding of what happens to Hoichi is nothing short of mesmerizing as well as a bit freaky. The last tale, “In a Cup of Tea,” reminded me of something one might see on the Twilight Zone or Outer Limits. Frankly it didn’t do much for me. Two major points about the film in general – the pacing is very, very deliberate. Second, its designation as “horror” should not, for modern audiences, be confused with “scary.” With its highly stylized, color-saturated cinematography, Kwaidan is a movie for patient film lovers, not for those seeking a hyperactive Hollywood blockbuster.
- Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Cinesthesia (aka Duncan)
22Mar10
There are ghost stories and there are horror movies, and Kwaidan (1964) is emphatically the former. It has not come to jolt or thrill, but to haunt. The ghosts in Kwaidan are words, thoughts, and ideas, from guilty memories to stories that should be told only with great caution. When Hoichi, a blind biwa player, sings the ballad of an ancient battle, he inadvertently summons its army of ghosts. To protect him, a priest writes prayers and blessings on Hoichi’s body. Words have power in Kwaidan, and it’s no coincidence that the film begins with shots of ink floating in water, spiraling and suspended like a spectral wraith.
On first look, I found Kwaidan almost excruciatingly slow (on a laptop screen) and a little anticlimactic (which, from a conventional dramatic standpoint, it is). And indeed, those looking for a plot- or action-driven movie will be disappointed. Kwaidan is a movie of mood, imagery, atmosphere, and theme. And it was only when I looked at it as a movie about storytelling that its four parts took on a grander resonance for me. I particularly like how the movie’s visual style subtly shifts over the course of its four tales. It plays like an odyssey into the depths of expressionism and back to realism again—with a great final shot, as if the long-ago storybook world is about to break through to ours. (It’s impossible to review Kwaidan without mentioning its sets: an expensive undertaking, the movie relies on elaborate indoor locales and wild, obviously fake matte paintings.)
I would love the chance to see Kwaidan on the big screen. The darkness of the theater, with nothing between you and a detailed panoramic screen, would be the best way to be overcome by its atmosphere. If the test of a movie is memorability, Kwaidan has continued to linger in my mind as both ghostly and lyrical: a pair of sandals disappearing mournfully into the snow; the pale Hoichi, losing himself to ghosts; and, of course, the ink—billowing, floating, slowly turning.
8 out of 10.
- Currently 4.0/5 Stars.