Kwaidan

Masaki Kobayashi may not have been as prolific as many of his contemporaries (Kurosawa and Ozu to name two of the more famous ones), but has directed a handful of classics. Kwaidan (1965) is one of them. It is an adaptation of four ghost stories from Lafcadio Hearn's folk tale collections: "The Black Hair" is an adaptation of "The Reconciliation" from Shadowings, "The Woman Of The Snow" and "Hoichi The Earless" are from Kwaidan, while "In A Cup Of Tea" is from Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs. One of the most impressive aspects of the film are the elaborate sets, colors, and art direction. For this lavish production, it has been said that Kobayashi drew extensively on his own training as a student of painting and the fine arts. The breadth of the film’s artistic expression is indeed impressive with hand-painted sets. The film presents an abstract wash of luminescent colors images that seemingly come from another world. The haunting score by Toru Takemitsu who was also responsible for other excellent scores for films like Hari Kiri and Pale Flower. I found the biwa played by Hoichi in my favorite episode, "Hoichi The Earless," haunting and the art direction the most impressive. I was also happy to see Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura playing the head priest of the temple in that episode. The camera direction was inspired as well as the film swoops in and out using crane shots to heighten the scenes as needed. Overall, a powerful and seemingly exotic film, that surprisingly lost out to Richard Lester's film, The Knack...and How To Get It at the Cannes Film Festival in 1965 (Kobayashi received the Jury Special Prize).