K(w)aidan (1964)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

K(w)aidan (1964) – M. Kobayashi

Director Masaki Kobayashi followed up his triumph Hara-Kiri (1962) with this film drawn from Lafcadio Hearn’s book of Japanese folktales, Kwaidan (1904), which included many tales of yokai and ghosts. The most famous are probably “Yuki Onna” (Woman of the Snow) and “Mimi-nashi Hōichi” (Hoichi the Earless), both included here along with two other tales “Black Hair” and “In a Cup of Tea”. The film is notable for its astounding art direction – entirely artificial and studio-bound – but it is admittedly slow (too slow for kids). As Ayako pointed out, it isn’t exactly horror either but rather sad stories with spooky elements. The first three tales take place in the samurai era.  “Black Hair” finds an ambitious young man leave his wife (who works as a weaver) to take up a position working for the local lord – he remarries to afford himself a better social position. But he is unhappy and years later returns to his first wife who lives in the same house and seemingly hasn’t aged (a warning sign!). “Yuki Onna” stars Tatsuya Nakadai as a woodcutter who gets lost in a snowstorm with his elderly partner; they take refuge in an old hut whereupon a mysterious woman/demon descends upon them, stealing the old man’s breath and forcing the younger one (Nakadai) to swear never to tell another soul or suffer the same consequences. “Hoichi the Earless” recounts the story of a blind cleric who is bewitched by a clan of ghosts to sing the epic tale of their last sea battle night after night; when the head priest discovers this, they cover Hoichi from head to toe with protective spells -- but they miss two spots. Finally, “In a Cup of Tea”, takes place later in 1904, showing a writer who sees the image of another man in his tea, eventually drinking it anyway, whereupon the ghostly man’s retainers show up to fight him. We have the original Criterion DVD which is apparently a 161-minute cut but newer releases run an even longer 183 minutes.