This is not a HPL adaptation, but definitely HPL themed, film from Japan. Time Out London’s 100 Scariest Horror Movies #71 Pulse (2001) Since about 1997 there has been a Renaissance in the Supernatural film coming out of various Asian countries, especially Japan. They came to the US piggy-backing the popularity of Martial Arts films, Manga-relation animation, and the cult-following of the “Asian Extreme” horror and crime films, but the movies I speak of are far removed from the visceral, over-the-top, wildness of the other popular cinema from the Far East. These are restrained, thoughtful, atmospheric, ghost stories. Suspense is built at a relaxed pace, and though the films often feature a moment or two of shocking intensity, oh they make you wait for it. They are traditional ghost stories like the classic British movies, “The Uninvited” (1944) and “The Innocents” (1961, later on this list), except that they draw on a different tradition, so the American audiences both have the pleasure of recalling things beautiful and old, and receiving something boldly new, at the same time. One striking thing about the Asian Supernatural thrillers is a feeling that the Supernatural is a given. Though surveys indicate Japan is a much less religious country over-all than the US, we Americans seem to have long drawn a line between what we call faith and what we call superstition and that line is reflected in our Supernatural fiction. Stephen King is the epidemy of how we view the Supernatural in our media, it is always a violation of perceived nature. There seems to be no such line in in Japanese culture, and therefore, in their films, the Supernatural is not unnaturalistic, though when it appears, its meaning still needs to be untangled. The huge popularity of these films in the US have inspired American remakes, most of which are terrible, all the pseudo-naturalism and subtleties are lost; it seems that filmmakers who should know better assume these themes and ideas are too alien for this audience. Also worth noting is the most of the Asian Supernatural thrillers that seem to attract the most US attention are often those that have reinvented primitive animism for a new age, fetishizing our too casually accepted technological artifacts and imbuing them with strong menace: “Ringu” (1998, and is later on this list) from Japan concerns VCRs. It was remade as “The Ring” (2002) which was the most critically acclaimed of the remakes. “Shutter” (2004) from Thailand, concerns the various types of photographic technology that simultaneously shared the store shelves at the moment just before digital gobbled up everything. It was remade under the same name (2008) and I am pretty sure I’m the only person in American with the heritox opinion that the remake is superior to the original (I thought the script was tighter and the female characterization stronger). “Kairo,” which the original title of this film, translates as “circuit.” It is from Japan and concerns the internet, specifically social media. It was remade as “The Pulse” (2006) and if there’s an American remake of Asian Horror that’s even worse than this one, I don’t wanna know about it. (And that dreck also generated two sequels, which just goes to show…) “Kairo,” or “Pulse,” is a unique film. As I watched I found myself thinking of other films that covered related territory, it has socially satirical themes and a paranoid, apocalyptic plot, so it is brother to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (both the 1955 and 1976 versions of that film are on this list) and George Romero’s “Dead” series (the 1968, 1978 & 1985 entries to this franchise are all on this list) but it’s handling of the material is far removed from any of these, or any other film I can think of. I imagine the process of script creation more a pairing down than a building up. It is based on a novel I have not read by screen writer and director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and it is Mr. Kurosawa who is credited as being the first major figure in the Asian Supernatural Renaissance. The complex story is advanced with the fewest possible plot details, for example, it’s an allegory of the isolation of a generation that was weaned on the internet, so essentially a horror film about Facebook, but Kurosawa allows that potent thematic idea to slowly move into the background, a bold move demonstrating his trust that the audience is capable of understanding the obvious; as a result in a film about social media, no one in the film actually spends any time on social media. As he pairs down, he distills emotion, because the emotion is what it is really and truly about. I’m pretty sure this is the only horror film ever that made its central subject loneliness. Also, it’s a Supernatural film that unfolds in a universe so mechanistic, while at the same time so ambiguous, it must be called Lovecraftian. It’s about an invasion, probably not from outer space, but from the other side of death. The only explanation given for what’s going on is provided by some random, over-talkative guy on a college library, so maybe we’re not even supposed to take it as gospel. In the pseudo-explanation, the afterlife has gotten over-crowded and the spirits are leaking back into our world, and the ghosts find the internet the easiest way to travel about out geography. They penetrate our private spaces via a program that advertises itself, “Would you like to meet a ghost?” which proves to be not only a computer virus, but a soul virus as well. There are rituals to contain the ghosts in the real-world spaces they’ve infected -- sealing doors with red tape -- but there’s no explanation how this ritual came to be, and plenty of evidence it’s a futile gesture. Kurosawa keeps the characterizations almost minimalisticly simple, giving the various young, hard-working, professionals and students no individualized quirks nor ever the usual economical short-hand of types. Their work and living environments provide you more information than their dialogue and behavior, but they are still wholly believable, because as crisis creeps into their lives, they define themselves by their priorities, some quite altruistic, but also demonstrating how much they’ve taught themselves to ignore. The plot follows two threads, neither of which concerns people who hold such positions in this world that they have the power to turn back the tide of doom. In one, Michi Kudo (Kumiko Aso), Junko Sasano (Kurume Arisaka), and Toshio Yabe (Masatoshi Matsuo) are friends who work in a plant nursery. They rely on another friend and co-worker, Taguchi (Kenji Mizuhashi) to handle anything concerning computer programing and the internet. When he doesn’t show up one day, Michi goes to his house. Taguchi is there, and directs her to a computer disk that their business needed. As she retrieves it, he steps into the next room. When she follows, she’s horrified to find he’s hung himself, Though the point is never made in the dialogue, from the very moment of Taguchi’s appearance, it is strongly implied that he was already dead, the suicide took place sometime earlier, and Michi had an unworldly encounter without even realizing it. Taguchi’s corpse leaves a vaguely human shaped smudge on the wall behind him; that will prove a repeated motif. Trying to unravel what just happened, the three coworkers search Taguchi’s recent online activity and discover as website called Forbidden Room which transmits pictures of people alone in their rooms. The website implies that these figures are ghosts, but they seem wholly unremarkable. Still they evoke tremendous unease. These ghosts prove to be the harbingers of doom, but their inaction inescapably echoes the grim repetitions and routines that have been bleeding the life out of the living before the ghosts came. Yabe becomes increasing emotionally effected by the strange events and omens, and then disappears. Then Junko starts to become irrational, followed by a similar deterioration. Michi tries to intervene, but doesn’t know how. There’s a great moment where Junko runs out and do something stupid, more level-headed Michi tries to stop here, but then her cell phone rings in a Pavlovian response, she stops to answer it, and Juno gets away. On the phone is a voice that might be Yabe, but maybe Yabe isn’t really Yabe anymore. The other thread concerns the tremendously likable, but largely ineffectual, hero Ryosuke Kawashima (Haruhiko Kato). Largely computer illiterate, introduced in an all-too-familiar state of frustration while setting up his computer. After going through long series on OK and I Agree clicks, things that we all do thoughtlessly, now seeming sinister because what had unfolded in the other story line, he stumbles across the Forbidden Room page. His computer starts acting strange on him, and he feels his first twitch of fear. He goes to the more computer literate guys at his school with the question, Can the Internet dial up itself? There he meets Harue Karasawa (Koyuki), for whom he is immediately smitten. His flirtation is so hesitant both he and the audience wonder if she even noticed it. When she responds to his uncertain attempt, we want to woop and cheer. That is the last bright moment in the film. There’s no love-story sub-plot developing, and there’s a point being made that there is not. These young people aren’t looking for romance, and perhaps don’t even really know what it is, though the film has a few shifting boy-girl parings, all they seem to only be seeking the most basic human companionship. In a world wherein in an electronic medium creates the illusion of human interaction, just having real company is improbable as true love. And that’s not the influence of the ghosts, that’s the reality of the society the ghosts have invaded, and that is why we are vulnerable to them. Harue starts slipping into a paralyzing panic over being abandoned, basically the same symptoms that Junko displayed. Ryosuke tries to intervene with her much as Michi did for Junko. This altruism distracts them from the fact that their friend’s personal crises are part of a global catastrophe. Disappearances and suicides become more and more common in Tokyo, but theres no panic – this film is not about hysteria, but the opposite, we are so far gone, they can’t even see doomsday approaching. Humanity feels it, but though their dread is palpable, their denial is greater. Even our two strongest characters, Ryosuke and Michi, fail to notice that public spaces are becoming improbably empty. And as this theme emerges, the power of the image of the smudge of black on the wall intensifies, it is taking the place of the image of the piles of corpses, it the shadow burned Hiroshima-like on the wall where a human once stood. The film is filled with long takes and lots of wide shots that dwarf the people in the frame. The action that takes place outside the frame is more important than that which happens within. There’s a complete lack of transitions between scenes other than straight cuts. Ambient noise (squeak of a chair or the rustling of leaves) in exaggerated, and more disturbingly, the exaggeration is inconsistent, hinting at a disorientation never made explicit. There is no one playing the investigator trying to solve the mystery, and no all-knowing Van Helsing who’s an expert on long-forgotten lore. I’ve read Kurosawa’s other film’s frequently feature such a character, and that he is most usually played by Kôji Yakusho. Mr. Yakusho appears here as well, but only in the short prologue and epilogue. He’s the oldest actor in the cast, and his weather-beaten stoicism and determination is lacking in all the other’s we spent the rest of the film with, Be strong. Dont give up. We have to keep trying. His tiny role reinforces the fact that this film is also about a generation-gap. He’s telling us we may have abandoned our children, and we have definitely failed to teach our children not to abandon themselves. https://youtube/watch?v=EfoJpCSs2lU
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 15:08:31 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015