O n i b a b a
1964, 103 mins
Kaneto Shindô (1912 – 2012)
Διαδραματίζεται στην μεσαιωνική Ιαπωνία όταν ο
εμφύλιος για τον θρόνο του αυτοκράτορα στο
Έντο έχει ερημώσει τις αγροτικές περιοχές από
άντρες οδηγώντας τους στον πόλεμο. Δυο
γυναίκες που έχουν μείνει μόνες τους βασίζονται
σε άνομους τρόπους για να επιβιώσουν μέχρις
ώτου ο ένας από τους δύο άντρες επιστρέφει
μόνος του.
Μία ταινία που δίνει «φωνή» στην φύση. Οι
ήχοι των χόρτων που λυγίζουν από τον άνεμο
φαίνεται να αντικαθιστούν την μουσική του
παραδοσιακού γιαπωνέζικου θεάτρου. Η
ατμόσφαιρα ονειρική, αβέβαιη, εφιαλτική. Οι
χαρακτήρες φαίνε-ται να μην είναι ικανοί να
επηρεάσουν την ζωή τους. Άλλοτε οδηγημένοι
από τα ένστικτα κι άλλοτε από το φόβο του υπερ-
φυσικού προσπαθούν να κρατηθούν ζωντανοί.
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Deep within the wind-swept marshes of Driven by primal emotions, dark eroticism,
war-torn medieval Japan, an impoverished a frenzied score by Hikaru Hayashi, and
mother and her daughter-in-law eke out a stunning images both lyrical and macabre,
lonely, desperate existence. Forced to mur- Kaneto Shindo’s chilling folktale Onibaba is
der lost samurai and sell their belongings a singular cinematic experience.
for grain, they dump the corpses down a
deep, dark hole and live off of their meager
spoils. When a bedraggled neighbor returns
from the skirmishes, lust, jealousy, and
rage threaten to destroy the trio’s tenuous
existence, before an ominous, ill-gotten
demon mask seals the trio’s horrifying fate.
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Kaneto Shindo, one of Japan’s most prolific di- daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) team.
rectors, received his biggest international suc- The women throw the samurai bodies into a
cess with the release of Onibaba in 1964. Its pit, and barter their armour and weapons for
depiction of violence and graphic sexuality was food. When Hachi (Kei Sato), a neighbour re-
unprecedented at the time of release. Shindo turning from the wars, brings bad news, he
managed — through his own production com- threatens the women’s partnership.
pany Kindaï Eiga Kyokai — to bypass the strict, Erotically charged and steeped in the sym-
self-regulated Japanese film industry and pave bolism and superstition of its Buddhist and
the way for such films as Yasuzo Masumura’s Shinto roots, Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba is in part
Mojuu (1969) and Nagisa Oshima’s Ai no corri- a modern parable on consumerism, a study of
da (1976). the destructiveness of sexual desire and —
Onibaba is set during a brutal period in his- filmed within a claustrophobic sea of grass —
tory, a Japan ravaged by civil war between ri- one of the most striking and unique films of the
valing shogunates. Weary from combat, samu- last century, winning Kiyomi Kuroda the Blue
rai are drawn towards the sev- Ribbon Award for Cinematog-
en-foot high susuki grass fields raphy in 1965. The memorably
to hide and rest themselves, frenetic drumming soundtrack
whereupon they are ambushed was scored by long-time Shindo
and murdered by a ruthless collaborator Hikaru Hayashi.
mother (Nobuko Otowa) and
The title translates, I believe, to an procures from a samurai a
“the hole,” and an impressive peculiar mask (the film’s sec-
specimen of that particular ondary symbol), an item that
topographic feature yawns in the soon develops a character of its
middle of Kaneto Shindô’s 1964 own.
Onibaba with the determined The undertakings are signifi-
gravity of the primary symbol. cant. But what does it all mean?
Not to say that this hole yields its meanings As in Ugetsu, Kenzo Mizoguchi’s uncanny 1953
easily. Anyone who’s seen Ringu, or its Ameri- tale of the supernatural afoot in feudal Japan
can counterpart The Ring, knows to what those (and an influence here), Onibaba shows less
titles refer – physically or otherwise – by the interest in laying bare its meanings than in of-
time the end credits roll. But there was a time fering the occasion for the viewers’ meditations
when Japanese ghost stories were a more deli- on life, existence (a different thing), and what-
cately evocative animal, and when, by giving ever lies below. Shindô’s interests are not all
less, their carefully unresolved symbolic mean- otherworldly, however, and it’s worth noting
ings offered more. that Onibaba’s dabbling in its characters’ carnal
The premise of Onibaba has the ring of folk- life was focused enough to have seemed a pre-
lore: in feudal Japan, two women – a mother occupation in its day.
and her daughter-in-law – manage their hard- Time enough has passed to qualify the
scrabble existence on a marshy plain by luring uniquely spare look of Onibaba classic; Kiyomi
errant samurai to their deaths and selling off Kuroda’s black-and-white cinematography
their wear. The bodies are disposed of in the haunts as much as the proceedings themselves,
title void, a remarkably deep – possibly bottom- particularly in the picture’s eerie nighttime pas-
less – abyss. Two events unsettle their lives: a sages. And Hikaru Hayashi’s unnerving score
male neighbor returns from battle, taking up has a fever to it equal to the strangest images
with the younger woman (technically the wife on-screen.
of the older woman’s son); and the older wom-
A film review by Jake Euker - Copyright © 2004 Filmcritic.com
http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/Onibaba
