After watching the Yokai film series and spending a lot of time with various science fiction monsters, it's time to look at something a little more unsettling from 1960s Japan. As luck would have it Kwaidan (Kaidan) combines some of my favourite things, horror anthologies and historical epics. This is a luxurious three hour experience that contains four separate chillers of varying styles and comes complete with an intermission. Whether you're into stories about cursed homes haunted by women with long black hair or samurai battle sequences this has something for everyone. But it is at the core a series of tales about ghosts, so it's probably a plus if you're a fan of those.
This is an amazing looking feature with lots of lavish sets and costumes. They spend no time trying to make it realistic at all, there's a theatrical look to almost every scene beyond a couple of shots of the sea that show the real outdoors. Snowy forests and secluded temples all have a similar kind of artifice that ties each story together beyond their branching supernatural flavour. The results are always impressive whether it's a simple courtyard or a grand military battle, and the atmosphere is boosted considerably throughout with the use of strange skylines and eerie weather effects. It's sometimes barren and cold, and sometimes striking and colourful, but always strangely hypnotic.
The opening story 'The Black Hair' is probably what you'd be expecting from this genre and region, as similar visuals and folklore have been used in more recent films. A swordsman living in poverty abandons his wife and sets out to gain wealth and social standing by marrying elsewhere, which he soon achieves. But the results are not what he had hoped for as he realises that money isn't everything and his old life had other less material comforts. However this epiphany comes all too late and his attempt to do the right thing doesn't go the way he hopes. It's a very standard storyline and the conclusion is very predictable, but like a lot these tales the execution is what makes it memorable.
There's an eerie dream like quality to the whole thing in which real life and memories merge into one another, while sudden waking nightmares are just around the corner. It's a melancholy and very human story which is what makes the final sequence so effective as the swordsman realises that his sudden romantic ideas are completely foolish and his selfish actions can't be mended. The editing and the sound design makes this the most atmospheric story in the anthology, and the makeup effects are both unreal and surprisingly unnerving. But this is also the most straightforward morality tale, and as the rest of the film progresses it's apparent that things are not always so simple.
The next story 'The Woman of the Snow' is kind of a second half to this initial outing in that it shares similar ideas about cursed men with sentimental ideals. It's also one step further into the unreal as the studio stages used to depict a forest in winter are bathed in blue light and framed by bizarre horizons. A woodcutter and his mentor take shelter in a fisherman's hut to escape the freezing conditions, but the older man is killed by a spirit in the night as the protagonist becomes trapped by both natural fear and otherworldly forces. Things get stranger when the spirit spares his life, but only if he promises never to tell anyone about what he witnessed.
Some time later the woodcutter falls in love with a travelling girl who stays at his home over night on her way to the city. It's obvious that she's the same spirit but for one reason or another he never makes this connection, and he doesn't seem to remember all the details of the earlier ordeal. As time goes on they get married and have children, and for a while it seems like they'll be able to enjoy a pretty average life. But in the back of the woodcutter's mind the memory of his mentor's death is taking shape and there won't be a happy ending for his relationship. It's an odd story that feels less like a fable and more of a cruel trick of fate, implying that trust and love may fall apart at random should sinister forces decide it.
The third chapter is yet another departure in terms of style, if only for the opening sequence which really turns up the heat. The story of 'Hoichi the Earless' is one of a blind monk and musician who ends up trapped by ghosts who want to hear him recite the tale of their demise every night, at the cost of his health. But to set all this up their story is first told in vivid fashion as a medieval war at sea takes place complete with blood red skies, orange samurai uniforms and blazing incendiary arrows. In a way this whole set piece is almost a segment in itself as they depict the tragedy and downfall of this warrior clan. It's certainly long enough, and is detached from the retold version for the most part which rarely uses flashbacks.
The result is that when Hoichi tells the story to what he thinks are a family of living nobles, we see can into his imagination and understand why the spooky visitors enjoy his version of events so much. They can actually feel alive again. It's an odd story in terms of the pacing since the two versions of events combined are pretty unwieldy on first viewing. But the effect of showing the past and the present as their own chapters becomes clearer as things move along and these long nights start to take their toll. Despite the title apparently giving away what will happen the outcome isn't obvious at all, and while it's yet another downbeat finale there's a lot more drama as his fellow monks attempt to pull him away from the grasp of the single minded entities.
The last tale feels a lot quicker as a result of this lengthy diversion into naval warfare, but it's also a more light hearted jaunt into both the life of a writer and his story, suggesting that in the past authors often vanished because of the subject matter with unfinished books being found by publishers. 'In a Cup of Tea' contains yet more swordplay but is a less cohesive segment as the writer lays out a story of a samurai who sees someone else's face reflected in his cup whenever he fills it. It's a less visually striking story with a lot of simple interior walls and castle gates, but it works as a refreshing conclusion after the heavy duty third chapter. It's again suitably different from what has come before, while not being the most memorable part of the film.
Elements of this finale could have probably been used as a bookend for the film, something that would probably have been the case in a more conventional anthology. But there's not much here that could be considered mundane from the technical aspects of the production to the subject matter itself. A lot of these may have been familiar to domestic audiences at the time as its all taken from existing literature, but for English speaking viewers you're likely to be in for a supernatural treat which feels very different from anything else. For those looking for series of strange images that stick in the mind's eye this is an eerie adaptation of Eastern folklore that demands to be seen.
4/5
