L'Étang du démon

For sheer unbridled culture shock there is nothing like Japanese cinema. I have one friend who gave me a series of films about a team of crack Japanese school girls who battle crime with a variety of lethal yo-yos. Another friend dragged me kicking and screaming to the Somerville Theater (back during its brief incarnation as an Art-House) to see Demon Pond, based on a popular play by B. K. Izumi and directed by Masahiro Shinoda. It's the story of a university student who travels to a small town in search of his professor, who left the university without word some years before. The professor is found living with his wife in a small house by a pond outside the village. He had promised a dying man that he would ring a large bell twice a day to prevent the demons from escaping from the pond and destroying the nearby village. The professor doesn't really believe in the demons, or the bell, but the problem with cynicism is that you can never rely upon it in a crunch (cause a true cynic can't really believe in cynicism either), so twice a day he's been ringing the bell, just in case. The townspeople don't believe in demons either, and there is grumbling that all this bell ringing is somehow the cause of the drought which has been plaguing the town for over a year. In the middle of all this controversy appears a pair of crustaceans with their own argument which carries over into the pond, where you meet the court of the Dragon Princess, who is trying to escape the pond to be with her boyfriend who's trapped in another pond. The Dragon Princess and the Professor's wife are played by a man, Tamasaburo Bando (one of Japan's most famous Kabuki players) and many of the scenes are staged in the Kabuki tradition, especially the scene in the pond (which resembles a Kabuki version of Pee-Wee's Playhouse) and an extremely elaborate tea ceremony (which goes on so long I was left thinking that the tea couldn't possibly still be hot.) Eventually the villagers take action, convince the professor to stop ringing the bell by threatening to tie his wife to a cow and send it careening into the pond. Cynicism loses in a spectacular demonstration of the consequences of messing with pond demons. I actually ended up going to see this film a second time, dragging some of my other friends kicking and screaming to the Somerville Theater. After all, the most fun you can have with foreign film is inflicting them on others.

YASHAGAIKE (Demon Pond) has been missing from the Home Video Market for far too long (as in forever). How very strange that one of the few examples of Bando Tamasaburo's art, and perhaps his most accessible to the west, is so little known. I first saw this film on the late-lamented "Z Channel" in Los Angeles in the early 1980's and have always wanted to become reacquainted with it. If memory serves, it was such a surprise to see so many genres, visual styles of scenery, costume, lighting and period assembled with such naiveté in one film. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that it is not readily available. Also, my one viewing on television gave the impression of already fading non-technicolor processing. I hope that this is wrong. Yet, anyone who has seen "Das Geschriebene Gesicht" by Daniel Schmid (only available on PAL at the present), or Tamasaburo's collaboration with Yo-Yo-Ma in his Bach series will be anxious to see anything by the great Kabuki onnagata. Perhaps "Natassia" will appear some day.

I fully admit that I sat to watch with a double disadvantage. For one thing, not being from Japan, I assume there are ideas herein that would bear much more significance for someone who is, and therefore I might well be missing something from my viewing experience. Secondly, I was so exhausted as I sat to watch that I actually passed out for several hours all told, and what should have been two hours became more like eight or nine. Then again, it's hardly as if this is the first Japanese film to be firmly rooted in Japanese folklore or culture, and I've enjoyed many others immensely. And while a middling or bad film might put an alert person to sleep, a good film usually has the effect, in my experience, of rousing me when I am drowsy, and that didn't happen here. And beyond these secondary or tertiary considerations, it must be mentioned as the foremost criticism that the single most defining trait of 'Demon pond' is a laboriously slow pace. I speak partly to Shinoda Masahiro's direction, if not also to Ikeda Zen and Yamachi Sachiko's editing, for the pacing within individual scenes as they are executed is all but reduced to soporific slow motion. However, I do also speak to the plot development, for not a lot actually happens over two hours, and even as scenes and the plot are written it is with a certain sense of lethargy.

I'm not familiar with Izumi Kyoko's play, and in the strictest of terms I can't speak to this as an adaptation. I can only judge the picture on its own merits, and to that end, Tamura Tsutomu and Mimura Haruhiko give us a story that's quite compelling once it meaningfully picks up. It is also, however, a story that reserves all its drama and hearty if recognizable themes for the back end; in turn, it is a story that probably could have seen fair portions omitted such that it would have comfortably fit into a feature that was shorter by between thirty and sixty minutes. The acting is earnest and commendable, the sets and lighting are lovely, and a lot of hard work went into the costume design, hair, and makeup. I deeply appreciate the practical effects that are employed. Yet apart from the slothful pacing, what most catches my attention is the original music of Tomita Isao, an airy, synth-driven soundtrack of somber ambience that quite recalls Tangerine Dream's flavorful dalliances with fantasy. I do also like the narrative, yes, but in all earnestness this is so meagerly paced that it is considerably longer than it needed to be or should have been. If 'Demon pond' had been as rich, engaging, and judiciously rendered for its full length as it was in the last forty-five minutes or so, I can guarantee that my evening would have looked much different.

I think this movie is fine. It's also plainly flawed, though, and those flaws are easily discernible in how the writing, direction, and editing treat the material, severely diminishing its strength. All that was necessary was for the same vitality we see toward the end to have been applied throughout. As that is not what happened, I find it difficult to offer an especial recommendation. It's still duly worthwhile, perhaps, on account of what it does well, but I couldn't begrudge anyone who finds the initial deliberation so off-putting that they stop watching and never see the value that this does have to offer.

This film has shown in the United States as Demon Pond. One part ghost story (with echoes of the Japanese classic, Ugetsu), one part a distinctly Japanese version of a "weird tale", and one part drawn from Japanese fairie tales and children's stories, much of the action is a vehicle for Bando, perhaps the most accomplished actor/female impersonator in Japanese theater and kabuki in the last 30 years. It is virtually impossible to tell that he is a man, playing a female role. More theatrical than scary, the film is still sometimes creepy and very imaginative visually. For those who are interested in Bando, Daniel Schmid made a "documentary" about him, The Hidden Face, which is well worth seeing. In all, this is an excellent example of superior recent Japanese film that has more aspirations to entertain than to be art, but entails both.

Others here have described the film more than adequately, all I have to add is that of Feb 2021, Shochiku have announced that it will be digitally remastered and re-issued. I hope I get a chance to rework the subtitles!

Back in those days, when videotape wasn't readily available, we sat in a screening room, watched the film, made notes and received an audio tape of the dialogue to work on back at home - using audio cassette player, the original (often uncorrected) Japanese script and a typewriter. As you can imagine, it was difficult, if not impossible to remember all the actions and nuances that must be addressed to make the subtitles work seamlessly, especially since Japanese can be very vague at times, often leaving out the subject, or the object of a sentence, so he/she, or here/there, that/this must often be guessed at. It was always a painful experience to watch the complete subtitled film, surrounded by the producers and usually the director, continually wincing at what must have looked like simple translation errors.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the remastered masterpiece by often underrated genius of Japanese cinema, Shinoda Masahiro.