When the film officially starts, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law appear in the swaying reeds. What we see are two women, their eyes are full of murderous intent. and necessities of life. At the moment when they dragged the corpse into the black hole, the drums and shrill screams of traditional Japanese music sounded again, as if to cheer, shout and sing praises for them, making the originally personal and barbaric behavior become solemn and mysterious. The taste of fate, as if they were the original us, the original sentient beings. The director pushes the viewer to the limit, makes the heart make an instinctive self-judgment, and makes people see the most primitive human nature. Therefore, the director did not even set a name for the pair of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and the nameless mother-in-law and daughter-in-law show that they are all living beings and the whole. In the same way, this conceptual music appears at several important points in the film, when the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law are about to kill, when the old eighth looks up and down at the daughter-in-law, when the daughter-in-law runs to the old eight's residence, etc., the rapid drum sound And the shrill horn sounded repeatedly. The director attempts to use these same sound effects to remind the audience to think about the theme of the film.
Xindo's creation tends to be simplistic and conceptual, omitting the background of the times in which the characters are placed. In the film, except for the hero who escapes from the battlefield, there is no atmosphere of war, which disintegrates the sense of time and space simulation, and exposes the hypothetical time and space of the scene. to the audience. At the same time, the film still follows a linear narrative structure, and focuses on the design of other elements, such as sound, light and shadow, composition, camera status, performance, etc. Sticking to one mode makes the film "fiction" in the "documentary", producing a kind of alienation effect, and the formal interest is undoubtedly revealed.
In the film, by dividing the natural continuity of space and time, Xindou has purposefully enlarged or reduced it, creating an unnatural man-made continuity. The sense of form is very strong, so that we can clearly understand the nature of the film. the theme of the film.
We know that most of Shindo's works are aimed at women, showing the fate and situation of women in the big era. He has deep feelings for the people at the bottom, especially the innocent people in the war, the war has brought them spiritual and physical harm. Shindo's hometown is Hiroshima. Like all Hiroshima people, the nightmare of August 6, 1945, haunts him to this day. He has always insisted on criticizing and reflecting on the brutal war and the harsh reality after the defeat. He once said in an interview: "Everyone is an independent existence and observes society from their own perspective. In war, people received a state's order to recruit, and they went to the battlefield like animals without complaint. In the past, I have always looked at this behavior in terms of the relationship between the state and the individual. But after the war, I changed my view. I began to realize that the state is made up of countless individuals, the individual is the subject, and there is a society when there are individuals. People are complex , there are contradictions, passions, and various ideas. The essence of drama is to express the happiness and misfortune of human beings.”[1]
Supported by such ideas, the themes of Shindo’s works have always changed with the changes of the times. , which is closely related to the proposition that human beings are most concerned about. In the 1950s, it was mostly realistic themes with a strong social nature. In the 1960s, it was the theme of discussing the "sex" of human beings, and then the "aging" of people. In the 1960s, the able-bodied Xindou was fascinated by the visualization of "sex", and focused on describing the basic desire of human existence - sexual desire or appetite, conveying a steaming strong desire to survive.
Xindo's "Naked Island" (a sound film without dialogue), which is known as a "movie poem" without lines, shows the toughness of people living in extreme poverty in a cold and simple black and white image. Again, we see this in The Hag. If "The Naked Island" is a quiet sing of the common people, then "The Hag" uses an exuberant tone to sing praises for the common people. Shindo explained the motivation for creating "Haunted": "When we look back on history, we will find that the common people are often pushed to the position of the victims. No matter what era, they are always thrown into a cruel and ruthless environment, and history swaggers. Trampling the past from their heads, the good times belonged only to those in power, and the common people were obliterated.... But I have been thinking that the common people must have a powerful and invincible driving force, that is, the original driving force of human beings. Otherwise They would not be able to endure humiliation and bear heavy burdens and reproduce to this day.”[2]
The vitality and vitality of the common people vented in The Hag is mainly reflected in people’s sexual desire and appetite. When the daughter-in-law learned the news that her husband was dead, she did not cry, she acted quite calm. The scene started and ended while eating and drinking. In fact, in such an extreme war environment, they did not have the energy to fight for one another. Those who passed away cry, and their lives have to go on, and this forward-looking life resilience runs through the entire film. Also in that scene, between the eighth and his daughter-in-law, the allure of "sex" is slowly growing. By arranging death, appetite, and sexual desire in one scene, we can fully appreciate the director's profound strength.
The two heroines in the film are unrestrained and unrestrained, their bodies exude murderousness, and history can no longer trample on them, and they want to dominate history. The director, from the standpoint of women, complained about the tragedies created by the times and the struggle for survival. Make them stand on a feminist standpoint to openly declare war on the patriarchal society, the world is in chaos, men are fighting for their own interests, endless, life-and-death, and the ultimate victims are women. The reason why the mother-in-law in "Ghost" prevents her daughter-in-law from marrying the old eight is entirely because of her son's absence. Her family actually disintegrated at the moment her son died, so what is the connection between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law? Woolen cloth? The so-called relatives are actually only blood relations. How does the relationship between people come into being? In fact, people are self-interested and self-supreme. This is the origin and foundation of human existence. Apart from her daughter-in-law, her mother-in-law has no other support. Therefore, in Xindo's films, women are both victims and perpetrators, and such a fate is not caused by women's own wishes, but an inevitable consequence of the oppression of a male-dominated society, which has to be said to be a social tragedy.
In order to express the theme of the film, the director created two female figures with distinct personalities. The characterization of its character is to explain the inevitability of the contingency of the characters' actions. Therefore, in the play, the murder of the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, and the mother-in-law preventing the daughter-in-law from combining with the eighth became an inevitable event, and it became a fatal question. The film magnifies the hidden world of the characters and puts them prominently in front of us, essentially introducing the topic of character contradictions into the field of human beings' animal and social struggles, that is, the eternal war between the id and the superego. This is a reflection on "human nature is inherently evil". The "evil" here is not in a narrow sense, but generally refers to all the primitive desires of an individual. Therefore, the mother-in-law's becoming a "ghost" in the film can also be seen as a process in which the innate and unfettered freedom is gradually suppressed by institutional social norms.
In the play, Shindo uses the symbolism more often. When we make up stories, we often write about landscapes, environments, mountains, water, bridges, etc., so that the stories can be unfolded in this specific space, especially in formalistic films, the rendering of the environment can be seen as a reflection on the behavior and behavior of the characters. The interpretation of the soul seeks to reveal the social incentives behind the characters' actions. However, there must be a more abstract thing in it, which leads to a key meaning in the story, a kind of thought, a kind of symbol. In "Last Words of the Afternoon", it is the stone. In "The Naked Island", the tiny island of one square mile in extreme poverty is also an abstract thing. When it comes to "The Hag", it is a black hole, a mask. Formalist works often express subjective feelings through the lens. Therefore, the realistic method of pure description cannot be adopted for reality, but should be further abstracted. It is expressed in Japanese film masters that they express their emotions with objects. It is no wonder that the Japanese always like to use the word "Monoga", such as "The Story of the Rain Moon", "Tokyo Story" and so on.
In the black hole in the play, there are all male corpses, and they were all part of the war before they were alive. This black hole has become the opposite of the director's values, and is the director's accusation and criticism of the war and those in power. So, the last set of shots is clearly allegorical, the daughter-in-law is innocent, and she can step across that cave. The mother-in-law became an unknown, waiting for the choice of the god of hell between the human world and the ghost world. The mother-in-law was a victim of the war, and her final whereabouts are unknown, just like we don't know when the war will stop. This kind of suspense tortures everyone involved in the war.
In the eyes of the director, the common people are cute and pitiful, and the daughter-in-law in the play is innocent and wild. In her, we see Xindo's praise for the common people. And the mother-in-law, who is both a victim and a perpetrator, fatefully goes down the road of demonization, making the mask take root and become a "ghost". A mask is a disguise of a person in society, a kind of alienation in society, a kind of loss and self-betrayal. The mother-in-law chose to put on the mask herself, which went against her own nature. Although she also put on a good mask for her own desires, it was far from easy for her to take it off. She could have been a person, a person with desires, but in the end, driven by the social reality, she became helpless and became a ghost, which has to be said to be a kind of sadness.
The general's mask obviously has a specific meaning here, and what we fear is often not the person itself. And often bewitched by the mask, let something false decipher our own power and let it enslave. Just as the common people are drafted into battle and left to be enslaved by those in power. At this time, the mask seems to have become the ugly face of those in power.
In terms of image expression, Xinteng personifies and symbolizes reeds. The reeds in the swaying wind, the subjective shots of people running in the reeds, and the follow-up shots, all personalize the idea of life, and there is no boundary between humans and ghosts. The impact of the entire film screen exceeds the plot in the play. That mysterious patch of reeds is deeply imprinted in the audience's mind. There are few lines in the whole film, which seems to be a metaphor that people have lost the need for language communication in the face of the cruelest facts, and the atmosphere created by the picture has conquered the audience.
As for characters, the director often uses footsteps and large contrast effects to express the ferocity and mutual hostility of the characters. It also uses the typical approach and distance mode—panorama and long-range close-up shots of characters to “enlarge” the performance, revealing the subtle psychological changes in the characters’ hearts, the sprouting of desires, and enhancing the drama. The multi-person dialogue scene is also very interesting, the composition of the picture is very clear, and the parallelism of multiple shapes makes the picture very expressive. The tension of equal power permeates the entire film. But there was only one scene, when the old eighth and his daughter-in-law were no longer separated by the appearance of the hag in the storm, and after a night of joy that broke through all obstacles, the two ran naked in the reeds, shyness and restraint never belonged to the original state The laughter echoed in the air. At this time, they no longer suppressed themselves, immersed in the world of the two, without the troubles of war, and their desires burst out. At this time, they looked so beautiful, in contrast to the ugliness before. In fact, it is the ugliness of other parts that highlights the beauty of their rare and unrepressed vitality at this time. Only this happy scene in the whole film has a dreamy blur effect. It is separated from other scenes and paragraphs in the film. We finally see the director's subjective emotions. This point becomes the director's criticism of war, seeking peace and human beings. happy eyes.
In photography, the vertical or horizontal movement of the camera is for objective narrative, so we rarely see the director's subjective emotions revealed in his works. In the film, the director often uses the jib lens, which is very special in the background of the 1960s. This is also one of the expressionist techniques that the director attempts to show the work from a different conventional angle. The mother-in-law, who was staggering in the night, clutched at her shriveled breasts and sighed to the sky. Here, the director used a shot of a mother-in-law hugging a tree trunk to show the cross-flow of desire, moaning involuntarily in her abdominal cavity. The tree trunk is equivalent to a male root at this moment, and the mother-in-law is also eager to penetrate. Then the director's camera panned, and what we saw was a dry tree trunk, completely lifeless, and her desire would never be satisfied, so we saw the director's sorrow and the director's sympathy for the women of that era. The desire for survival and the desire for sex are the most primitive needs of human beings. It is the war that pushes them to a limit. Although they are tenacious and tenacious against reality, they cannot escape the strife of the male-dominated society.
Director Shindo's style tends to be cold, natural, and weird, but we also find warmth and vitality in it. The mysterious philosophical meaning permeates the stylized artistic expression. I thought it was just a master of harsh realism, but it is still handy to play with such a strong sense of form. Sex is the source of life and the inexhaustible driving force for human beings to live. If you don’t write about sex, you can’t write about people. Xindo did it. He not only wrote about sex, but also about people.
References:
[1]. Yan Ni. Continue to suffer setbacks in order to shoot viable works - Interview with Kanto Shindo. "Cover Character" p23-29
[2]. Kanto Shindo. My Footsteps - Independent Production Thirty Years of the Studio" (Volume 1 of "The Films of Kanto Shindo") p216
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