Set in The Warring States period of Japan's history, a mother and daughter are raped and killed by invading warriors, setting off a series of mysterious and savage murders of local samurai. With honor at stake, the governor orders a newly appointed samurai to battle the evil spirits connected to the murders.
Lit Darkness
What immediately stands out in Kuroneko is its surreal cinematography. Kiyomi Kuroda (long time collaborator with Shindo) hypnotizes one's senses by way of low-key lighting, creating a world of darkness and shadows. Yet, from these shadows emerge the brightest whites imaginable: sudden onbursts of light allow the spectres to emerge from and return to the shadows in seconds.
When Surrealism Meets the Supernatural
Further adding to the surreal spectral visions is the film's use of wirework and the subsequent editing of these shots. Spirits defy conventional movement by floating laterally, climbing air, and drifting between the fore and background - a realm where empty space serves the Evil Gods.
Shindo uses an arsenal of techniques such as editing still images into sequences, cut in a manner to blur time and disjoint continuity.
Shindo's use of close-ups juxtaposed with long-shots, insertion of still images, confusion of spatial relations, and disjointment of time suggest that the Underworld may be connected with present day reality. In fact, through editing Shindo creates a dual, uncertain world where the supernatural is, at times, indistinguishbale from the natural.
Women in Ancient and Modern Society
The theme of Kuroneko appears to be the surivival of women in wartorn lands or, more specifically, what women must do to survive in such hostility. The suggestion that they must prey upon the very men that create war is one of vengeance which, undoubtably, is a prevenelent theme of war inself. However, for these women, revenge is intimately personal and disconnected from any aspect of clan warfare.
Perhaps the film's theme emerged from Shindo's own conerns about post-Hiroshima Japan, the wrath of nuclear warfare, and women's survival in 1950-60s Japan. Relating the anxiety of modern Japan to the Warring States period, Sindo suggests that a woman's best weapon for revenge is her sexuality which is ironic, on the one hand, as female sexuality is traditionally ingrained as a sin in most culture's.
Driven Unconsciously to Self-Destruction
Human drives, particularly those of men, appear to be the downfall of society in Shindo's view. Not only do men lust for power of state, but they too lust for sexual dominance; it's no surprise that power and sex are the two main egotistic drives on display. The analysis of drives in Kuroneko can be credited to Shindo and not just our imagination, as Shindo himself admitted that a "Freudian influence" (Wakeman) is present throughout all his work.
Onibaba Revisited
In relation to Shindo's most popular period piece and ghost story, Onibaba is eeirly similar to Kuroneko in terms of both style and theme. Both films explore the cost of men's drives, particularly sex, and both films examine the impoverished climate women endured in order to survive in Warring Japan which, as mentioned, is no doubt a reference to the hardships of women in post-war Japan.
- Kuroneko. Dir. Kaneto Shino. Perf. Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otawa, Kiwako Taichi, Kei Sato. Toho Company., 1968. Running Time: 99 min.
References
- Wakeman, John. World Film Directors, Volume 2. The H. W. Wilson Company. 1988. 1021-1027.
Join the Conversation