Séance

The Sixth Sense and A Simple Plan by way of Martin Heidegger, this genre-bending thriller is directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Katsuhiko (Koji Yakusho) is a mild-mannered sound-technician who is married to Junco (Jun Fubuki).

While at first glance Junco seems to be an average hausfrau, she possesses great clairvoyant powers.

Though she has slowly and quietly built a reputation as a medium, she proves to be completely incapable of working in a normal service industry job; she has the unfortunately tendency of being able to see the crimes of her patrons. Katsuhiko is aware of her unusual abilities but prefers to think of her as "normal."

Young psychology graduate student Hayakawa (Teuyoshi Kusanagi) invites Junco to join his study on the paranormal. At the same time, the police are desperately searching for a young girl who was kidnapped by an ex-cop turned pervert.

At Hayakawa's behest, the cops consult with Junco as to the child's whereabouts. Ironically enough, the girl escapes her captor and takes refuge in Katsuhiko's equipment case while he records sounds in the mountains.

The next day, Junco's psychic sonar goes off and she discovers the missing child in their garage. This freak happenstance awakens a long-dormant ambition in Junco: convinced that her discovery was not a striking enough find, she hatches an ill-conceived scheme to make it seem more dramatic. While Katsuhiko tends to the unconscious girl, Junco scatters clues throughout the western suburbs of Tokyo and then informs the police of her psychic "insights."

As the film progresses, their plan goes awry and the child meets a bad end. Junco's abilities boomerang on her, and soon she and Katsuhiko are haunted by the ghost of the girl. Noted stars Yukari Ishida and Show Aikawa make cameos. This film was screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival.

I cannot remember being scared by a movie like this. "The Sixth Sense" had very scary parts, but this was scary throughout. Writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who showed us what he could do when he transformed the thriller "Cure" into a chilling horror-like ending, now brings us pure horror with "Séance (Korei)". If you think the little girl in Poltergeist or the Exorcist are scary, you've never been haunted by a little girl before. Kurosawa makes this little darling so creepy that you might see her in the streets for the next few days (I'm slightly exaggerating here, but aren't movies always a bit exaggerated). Which is not exaggerated, however, is the skill Kurosawa has to entrance the viewer in a slow cumulating fear that creeps up from the bottom of your spine and spread through your shivering body. He uses hallways, shadows, rooms and corners like a magician and makes you feel right in the middle of the action, frightened, expecting and not knowing what to do.

Visually mesmerizing (unintentional reference to what we learn in "Cure"), "Seance" still has a solid story which puts characters in an interesting situation and begs the audience to think "what would you do if this happened to you?". Acting is very potent, especially from lead actor Koji Yakusho. The story has enough twists and turns to keep you captivated and some actual substance as to the role of the paranormal in today's society. What endures undoubtedly, is the atmosphere of fright.

If you want to see a scary movie, see this one.

Note: For those who think this is a "Sixth Sense" knock-off, please be advised that this movie was made in Japan and that there were ghost stories there way before Hollywood. I saw this movie at a special screening, in the presence of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and he was telling us that he based the idea for the ghosts in his story on various credible people he knows who claim that they actually witnessed ghost apparitions. It was a recurring theme that the room seemed colder when they appeared, so he made the breath visible to indicate that. The fact that he portrayed them without a face was his own interpretation and what he wished to express to the viewer.

Something a bit strange for a Kurosawa movie, Korei is (debatably) a remake of an old American movie (of the same name, if memory serves). It seems that in some of the scenes Kurosawa is much more focused on replicating the emotions of the domestic experience than trying to scare. After all, anyone who's seen Kairo, Cure or Charisma knows he has nearly master the latter. Because of this, if find that Korei is not as frightening as his typical fair. Also, some of the household drama comes off forced for the near first-timer in this field.

But another way of thinking about it: it seems there is a pronounced old-time hollywood feel to some of the home scenes which may have been very intentional. All of the movie is presented as a sort of reference to this: the lightning behind the characters as they think evil thoughts, the simplicity of most of the shots (devoid of the overwhelming atmosphere typically present in K. Kurosawa films), even the fair simplicity of the characters. If it is seen this way (which i am increasingly convinced is how it may have been intended) then it is possible that the unlikely touches seen in this movie are not a failure at all, but an attempt at a homage. Whether that homage is a failure or not, I am in no position to say.

Overall, this movie (and Cure for that matter) is nicely done. With Seance, appropriately, a lot of negative space mise-en-scene was deftly carried out; with Cure, narrative as well as formal (eg spliced split-second frames, abrupt scene cuts etc) ellipses are done well with good editing. I liked the continuity of both the protagonist and the restaurant (albeit from a different shooting angle) through both films. My only problem with it (and Cure) is that sometimes the aesthetics feels contrived, and the understatement/'minimalism' is, ironically, overwrought & cliché. There's no greatness here (in terms of psychological horror/terror, there are much more genius auteurs in both the East and West, eg the 'other' Kurosawa's Rashomon and Polanski's earlier films, to name a few respectively), but it has thought, and is still better than 90% of the sh*t out there.

As far as being a horror movie goes, this movie leaves much to be desired. More of an atmospheric thriller than a horror movie per say, Korei is The Sixth Sense, minus the scary scenes. As in accordance with modern Japanese horror movies, Korei relies mostly on increasing psychological intensity rather than the Hollywoodized method of striking visual effects in order to achieve its chills. In this movie, you don't see any gore, or anything "scary" in that sense, but there is the constant pervading feeling of dread... which does keep the audience hooked. It's oftentimes reminiscent of Cure, with just as slow a plot.

The storyline is well developed and you can't help but feel sorry for the characters. Engaging and provocative, if you're into Japanese horror movies I'd suggest giving this one a try. If you're new to the genre, go watch Ringu instead. Overall, a good film... just not a good horror movie.

6/10