Conference bookie::movies

506.0. "Kwaidan" by DSSDEV::RUST () Mon Mar 28 1994 15:51

    In the "obscure movies I've seen lately" category, this one is the
    obscurest. I came across it via a very circuitous route that started
    with a friend finding mice in his apartment and meandered through
    bookstores on three coasts, some serious library time, and eventually
    wound up in a Facets film catalog.
    
    "Kwaidan" is a Japanese film made up of four ghost stories taken from a
    collection (also titled "Kwaidan") by noted Japanese "interpreter"
    Lafcadio Hearn. [Most of the stories are Japanese folktales that Hearn
    tracked down and translated; some may be of his own crafting.]
    
    The film is very, very moody and evocative - drifting snow, pounding
    waves, shifting shadows, that kind of thing. And the tales are all
    corkers, classic ghost stories in the oldest tradition, from encounters
    with snow-demon ghosts to special appearances before an entire clan
    at the site of its massacre centuries before. There's some
    soul-stealing and some vengeance-dealing, and it's all very fine...
    but.
    
    Alas, the film was flawed for me - it's slow. Not just mood-building
    slow, but draggingly, boringly slow. It's one thing to draw out the
    hero's stealthy trip through the desolate warehouse to bring everyone's
    nerves to the maximum tension, but it's another to draw it out farther
    still such that the audience's attention has wandered by the time the
    climax occurs. Perhaps it's a cultural thing, or perhaps a generational
    one; maybe I'm just used to a quicker pace, a tighter story. 
    
    However, I'm still glad I got to see it; some of the imagery is
    marvelous, and will stay with me - as will the stories themselves. I
    just wish it hadn't made my finger itch for the fast-forward button
    quite so much!
    
    -b

I wouldn't really consider this film to be obscure at all, it's considered a
classic Japanese film. I agree that things tend to move slowly but that's 
intentional, this is a "mood" film not an action film. The photography is
excellent, really first rate. There's a terrific looking Voyager Criterion
Collection laserdisc available.


Randy