Onibaba (film)
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Onibaba | |
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Kaneto Shindō | |
Screenplay by | Kaneto Shindō |
Produced by | Toshio Konya |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Kiyomi Kuroda |
Edited by | Toshio Enoki |
Music by | Hikaru Hayashi |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Toho |
Release date |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Onibaba (鬼婆, lit. "Demon hag"), also titled The Hole, is a 1964 Japanese
Plot
The film is set somewhere in Japan near Kyoto, in the mid-fourteenth century, at the beginning of the Nanboku-chō period. Two fleeing soldiers are ambushed in a large field of tall, thick reeds and murdered by an older woman and her young daughter-in-law. The two women loot the dead soldiers, strip them of their armour and weapons, and drop the bodies in a deep pit hidden in the field. The next day, they take the armor and weapons to a merchant named Ushi and trade them for food. The merchant tells them news of the war, which is driving people across the country to desperation. As they leave, Ushi makes a sexual proposition to the older woman, who rebuffs him. A neighbor named Hachi, who has been at war, returns. The two women ask about Kishi, who was both the older woman's son and younger woman's husband, and was drafted along with Hachi. Hachi tells them that they deserted the war and that Kishi was later killed when they were caught stealing food from farmers. The older woman warns the younger woman to stay away from Hachi, whom she blames for her son's death.
Hachi begins to show interest in the younger woman and, despite being warned to stay away from Hachi, she is seduced by him. She begins to sneak out every night to run to his hut and have sex. The older woman learns of the relationship and is both angry and jealous. She tries to seduce Hachi herself, but is coldly rebuffed. She then pleads with him to not take her daughter-in-law away, since she cannot kill and rob passing soldiers without her help.
One night, while Hachi and the younger woman are together, a lost samurai wearing a Hannya mask forces the older woman to guide him out of the field. He claims to wear the mask to protect his incredibly handsome face from harm. She tricks him into plunging to his death in the pit where the women dispose of their victims. She climbs down and steals the samurai's possessions and, with great difficulty, his mask, revealing the samurai's horribly disfigured face.
At night, as the younger woman goes to see Hachi, the older woman blocks her path, wearing the samurai's robes and hannya mask, frightening the girl into running home. During the day, the older woman further convinces the younger woman that the "demon" was real, as punishment for her affair with Hachi. The younger woman avoids Hachi during the day, but continues to try and see him at night. During a storm, the older woman again terrifies the younger woman with the mask, but Hachi, tired of being ignored, finds the younger woman and has sex with her in the grass as her mother-in-law watches. The older woman realizes that despite all her warnings, her daughter-in-law wants to be with Hachi. Hachi returns to his hut, where he discovers another deserter stealing his food; the deserter abruptly grabs his spear and stabs Hachi, killing him.
The older woman discovers that, after getting wet in the rain, the mask is impossible to remove. She reveals her scheme to her daughter-in-law and pleads for her to help take off the mask. The younger woman agrees to remove the mask after the older woman promises not to interfere with her relationship with Hachi. After failing to pull it off, the young woman breaks off the mask with a mallet. Under the mask, the older woman's face is now disfigured, as the deceased Samurai had been. It is implied that the previously removable mask was accursed by supernatural means, binding itself permanently to its wearer's face by the power of rain (a metaphysical symbol of Buddhist punishment), but the truth behind the implied origin is never fully revealed. The younger woman, now believing her mother-in-law has turned into an actual demon, flees; the older woman runs after her, crying out that she is a human being, not a demon. The young woman leaps over the pit, and as the older woman leaps after her, the film ends.
Cast
- Nobuko Otowa as Older Woman
- Jitsuko Yoshimura as Younger Woman
- Kei Satō as Hachi
- Taiji Tonoyama as Ushi
- Jūkichi Uno as The masked Samuraiwarrior
Production
Onibaba was inspired by the
Kaneto Shindo wanted to film Onibaba in a field of susuki grass. He sent out assistant directors to find suitable locations.[3] Once a location was found near a river bank at Inba Swamp in Chiba Prefecture, they put up prefabricated buildings to live in.[4] Filming started on June 30, 1964, and continued for three months.[5] Shindo built things such as a makeshift turtle water slide to entertain the crew and keep things cool during harsh conditions of filming out in the fields of nowhere. The crew members were doing laundry and living in the fabricated buildings during the filming. The crew members grouping and eating together things like onigiri and soba noodles was caught on camera.[6]
Most of the cast consisted of members of Shindo's regular group of performers, Nobuko Otowa, Kei Satō, Taiji Tonoyama, and Jūkichi Uno. This was Jitsuko Yoshimura's only appearance in a Shindo film. The two women do not have names even in the script, but are merely described as "middle-aged woman" and "young woman".[7]
They had a rule that if somebody left they would not get any pay, to keep the crew motivated to continue. Shindo included dramatized scenes of the dissatisfaction on the set as part of the 2000 film By Player.[citation needed]
To film night scenes inside the huts, they would put up screens to block the sun, and changing the shot would require setting the screens in a completely different spot.[8]
Kaneto Shindo said that the effects of the mask on those who wear it are symbolic of the disfigurement of the victims of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the film reflecting the traumatic effect of this visitation on post-war Japanese society.[3]
A makeshift tower where crew members could climb to look down and film using crane shots was built. The tower was tall enough to get a look around the entire field.[6]
The film contains some sequences filmed in slow motion.[9]
The scenes of the older woman descending in to the hole had to be shot using an artificial "hole" built above ground with scaffolding, since holes dug in the ground at the location site would immediately fill with water.[5]
Score
Onibaba's
Release
Onibaba was released in Japan on November 21, 1964, where it was distributed by
Home media
It was released as a Region 1
Reception
From contemporary reviews, the
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Onibaba received an approval rating of 90% based on 18 modern reviews, and an average rating of 7.20 out of 10.[17]
Themes
While Onibaba is said to gain its inspiration from the Shin Buddhist parable by Kaneto Shizawa's discretion, onibaba also refers to traditional tall tales and ghost stories throughout Japan of vicious and monstrous elderly demon women said to stalk about various areas and wilderness to hunt for human victims to take back to their lairs and feast on them. This can be seen through how both the mother and daughter in law lurk about their home territory of the fen which they live in, awaiting stragglers and lost soldiers of war before killing them for their valuables in order to purchase and gather food in their desperate times. It is of some consideration that such tales of evildoings of men in such times may be the inspiration for how such tales may have been started in the first place, as such atrociousness would in turn not be accepted by any normal human being as possible by men. In terms of Japanese spirituality and Shinto, there are also themes of how gross vice and evil can eventually turn one into demons and monsters themselves in time, which is catalyzed by the mother wearing the cursed mask, which itself may be cursed or afflicted with a severe infectious disease, transforming her into a literal onibaba.
With the outbreak of the Onin War, Onibaba also portrays an almost post-apocalyptic level of societal breakdown and moral degeneracy; as Kyoto was valued as Japan's capital long before the rise of the city of Edo and the reestablishment of the Shogunate's power by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the violence and warfare of the Onin War eventually spread throughout Kyoto itself, completely causing chaos and throwing Japan into turmoil because of its abandonment and desolation as Japan's center of politics, religion, and economics into the twilight of the Nanbokucho era. Its reach of anarchy can be felt into the rural lives of the mother and daughter-in-law and their neighbors, lacking community to ensure moral guidance and direction, delving into wanton abandon as their lives become more of a struggle to survive and desolate of human interaction, and pushing them to go as far as to commit what would be heinous crimes and atrocities in more peaceful times, but has now been necessitated to be essential to surviving their meager and bleak times.
With origins from Buddhist themes, the film is evocative of the Third Age of Buddhism (Japanese: Mappo) which in Heian Era depictions, spoke of how demons from Hell sent forth by the infernal King Enma to be unleashed upon the earth, and hunt eagerly for sinners, degenerates, and non—believers to throw into eternal damnation.
Genre classification
Many critics have been divided on the genre of the film. While Onibaba is regarded a "period drama" by
Keiko I. McDonald stated that the film contained elements of the
Legacy
Onibaba was screened at a 2012 retrospective on Shindō and Kōzaburō Yoshimura in London, organised by the British Film Institute and the Japan Foundation.[25]
Willem Dafoe, a professed admirer of the film, has stated that he wanted to remake Onibaba, and indeed acquired the rights for a time, but ultimately felt that any contemporary spin he might put on it would "ruin" the source material.[26]
See also
- Onibaba (folklore)
References
- ^ a b c d Galbraith IV 2008, p. 215.
- ^ a b Bradshaw, Peter (15 October 2010). "Sex, death and long grass in Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
- ^ a b Shindo, Kaneto (Director) (15 May 2008). Onibaba, DVD Extra: Interview with the director (DVD). Criterion Collection.
- ISBN 978-4-532-16661-8.
- ^ a b Shindo 1993, pp. 149–187
- ^ a b "鬼婆 撮影現場1". YouTube. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
- ^ Shindo 1993, p. 242
- ^ Kuroda, Kiyomi (Cinematography) (15 May 2008). Onibaba, DVD Extra: Making of feature (DVD). Criterion Collection.
- ^ McDonald 2006, p. 113: a sudden slowing in the shot
- ^ Film 4. "Onibaba (1964) - Film Review from Film4". Film 4. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ a b "The Criterion Collection: Onibaba by Kaneto Shindo".
- ^ Sight & Sound. Vol. 23, no. 4. British Film Institute. p. 115.
- ^ Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 33, no. 384. British Film Institute. pp. 180–181.
- ISBN 0-8352-2790-1.
- ^ Weiler, A.H. (10 February 1965). "The Hole (1964) Onibaba at Toho". New York Times. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Onibaba". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
- ^ "Onibaba (1965)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
- ISBN 978-0416183306.
- ^ McDonald 2006, p. 109: Onibaba strikes us as kind of stage drama taking its cues from folklore
- ^ Hardy, Phil (1996). The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror. Aurum Press. p. 165.
- ^ Stephens, Chuck (15 March 2004). "Black Sun Rising". Criterion Collection. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
- ^ McDonald 2006, p. 116
- ^ Lowenstein, Adam (2005). Shocking Representation: Historical Trauma, National Cinema, and the Modern Horror Film. Columbia University Press. p. 101.: "Shindo's use of the hannya mask and reliance on heavy drumming punctuated by human cries for Onibaba's score […] are direct quotations of Noh style."
- ^ Cuntz, Vera. "SheDevils - Kaneto Shindôs Onibaba & Kuroneko" (in German). Ikonen magazin. Retrieved 9 September 2012.: "Die Filme [Onibaba and Kuroneku] folgen in ihrer Schauspielkunst, Erzählstruktur und Inhalt den klassischen japanischen Nô-Stücken." ("These Films [Onibaba and Kuroneku] follow classic Japanese Noh Plays in the ways of acting, narrative structure and content.")
- ^ "Two Masters of Japanese Cinema: Kaneto Shindo & Kozaburo Yoshimura at BFI Southbank in June and July 2012" (PDF). Japan Foundation. Retrieved 18 July 2023.
- ^ "Willem Dafaoe's Closet Picks". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-1461673743.
- ISBN 4-00-003763-3.
- McDonald, Keiko (2006). Reading a Japanese film: Cinema in context. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0824829933.
- Thompson, Nathaniel (2006). DVD Delirium: The International Guide to Weird and Wonderful Films on DVD; Volume 3. ISBN 1-903254-40-X.
External links
- Onibaba at AllMovie
- Onibaba at IMDb
- Onibaba at the Japanese Movie Database
- Onibaba at Rotten Tomatoes
- YouTube
- Onibaba: Black Sun Rising an essay by Chuck Stephens at the Criterion Collection