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From the mind of Kaneto Shindo comes ONIBABA, a haunting folk nightmare. Set in medieval Japan, a peasant woman and her daughter stay alive by murdering stray soldiers and selling their armor for food. A crafty warrior saves his life by seducing the daughter - until the mother's witchcraft exacts her revenge. A truly original film, Shindo's stark, erotic vision will stick in viewer's heads for days. (8/10 Stars)

very sleepy. will elaborate tomorrow. if i freaking feel like it.
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The RT Synopsis: From the mind of Kaneto Shindo comes ONIBABA, a haunting folk nightmare.In medieval Japan, a peasant woman and her daughter stay alive by murdering stray soldiers and selling their armor for food. A crafty warrior saves his life by seducing the daughter - until the mother's witchcraft exacts her revenge. A truly original film, Shindo's stark, erotic vision will stick in viewer's heads for days.

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It's not like I would have described it, but it certainly is a haunting film.
A few comments because I don't really want to review it:

1. Surprisingly sexual for a 1960's Japanese film, imo. We see the mother and her daughter-in-law topless for a lot of the film. There are sveral sex scenes, nothing graphic, but kind of noisy and explicit for the time. Perhaps I haven't seen enough 1960s foreign films, but I never expected these scenes. There was a particularly shocking one. The mother spies on her her daughter-in-law and the neighbor having sex. She walks away in anguish, touches her breasts suggestively and then almost straddles a dead tree.

2. It isn't a horror at all, but that makes it worse because the things these women do to survive are horrifying. It's all about survival. The Samurai flee the battles in order to survive, and some of them are killed by the women in order to survive.

3. It is a beautiful film. I hate describing black and white films this way, but it is almost "lush" in some places. The sea of tall grass as it sways in the wind is so damned beautiful and scary at the same time. I loved the shot of the daughter-in-law beating the clothes by the river.

4. The final shot was kind of abrupt, but this is a really great film.

This is one that's been on my queue since I first put one together. It's a film that I've continually put off seeing for other things, but one whose synopsis has always intrigued me.

This is the only Shindo film I've seen thus far, but I'd be anxious to see more if I could find any. It seems Netflix only carries this one. The film has a wonderful visual style, and stands somewhere between drama, suspense, and noir. It's a primitive look at sex and survival, two of the strongest human emotions.

A mother and daughter-in-law live in a farming village during a war and kill and rob lost samurai in order to buy grain to survive. They coexist perfectly until a man from their village escapes the war and comes back to the village to live. Soon he is seducing the daughter, and the mother is trying desperately to keep her daughter-in-law at home.

The three main actors are wonderful. They need to be in a film like this. The performances are the meat of the film, with the setting and visuals adding the depth. This is where Shindo comes in. His focus on the swaying grass in the village, and it's relationship to the emotions of his characters is phenomenal and heightens the experience.

The film is both disturbing and erotic, an interesting mix, and is compelling to the last frame. As the triangle becomes more volatile, each person's inner demons are exposed, leading to a volcanic conclusion. The film mentions Buddhism a few times, hinting that if there wasn't a sense of ownership and a great desire between the three characters, their situation would be easily solved and their suffering would cease.

Shindo seems to be a great talent, one I wish I could explore in more depth. In an interview on the DVD, he comments that he made 47 films in his career, and it's a damn shame that only 1 out of the 47 are available to me right now. I guess I'll count my blessings that I was able to see this one.

Travellers and Magicians - Never quite achieving any powerful feelings in the audience, this remains as one of those, while entransing, somehow disconnected small films. The main strong point here is in the story, in which we follow a Bhutanese man who dreams of leaving for America in hopes for a fuller and more exciting life than he has in his small village in Bhutan. Upon his journey, he seems ashamed of what he's doing by leaving his community and lies about it, but he's still intent upon getting to the US. On his first day out, he meets a monk who starts to tell him a story which greatly parallels his present plight. It's within this story which picks up and stops throughout the film multiple times that we're given the true meaning of the film---the fantasation of our dreams can only lead to utter disappointment, and, more or less, is the grass really greener on the other side?

Batman Begins - Though many here call this a masterpiece, it seems as though they've forgotten what truly great other films Nolan has made, such as the popular Memento and a subtler Insomnia. But, this is beside the point, Batman is the BEST Batman film to date. Achieving the much-lacking connection with Bruce Wayne, Nolan has really set up what and who Batman is. The action scenes are stunning, and the fight scenes do what they were set out to do (to give you the quick, shadowy, and fearful perspective of the thugs he's battling). It's large drawback is its lack of exposition, and while the film has an hour-or-whatever long "exposition," it doesn't give it to us in the right style, for we too often in those first scenes don't feel in touch with our characters, and a bit of it lingers throughout the entire piece. A true rating of 8.5/10.

12 Monkeys - Never has the threat of apocalypse seemed so fun as it does in Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. Time-twisting and constantly a jigsaw puzzle for the mind, we're constantly on the edge of our seat awaiting what the next move is going to be for our main player, James Cole (being done very well by the usual lack-luster Willis). And speaking of performances, Pitt does a fantastic job of throwing off his then (and probably still now) pretty boy persona with his mad role as the paranoid and neurotic Jeffrey Gaines, a man who we're not sure if he's the cause of the is-it-truly-coming apocalypse. Always entertaining visually, Gilliam delivers his usual fare of accented angles and near-cartoonish set designs. A truly fun and original sci-fi action thriller.

L'Avventura - Not once was I ever bored or disenchanted with this amazing and beautiful film from Antonioni. I'm honestly at a loss for words as to how to describe this clash of an exploration of love and social commentary. This was my first experience with the acclaimed Antonioni, and I have to say, he deserves it.

Onibaba - While in the beginning this looked to be little more than just another visually stunning, yet side-dish of a film, I was thrown completely off as I was able to watch this whole drama develop. Originating from a Japanese folk-tale, this story of lust, aggrivation, and jealousy is truly astounding. To give you the basic plot rundown, two women (mother and daughter-in-law) survive in these large fields by killing wandering samurai, taking their gear then dumping them in this deep, dark hole, and selling their belongings for food. Then comes back from war a man living close-by (who tells them their son and husband has been killed in battle) and the drama unfolds. The daughter-in-law starts slipping out at night seeking some thrills with this man in this meager existence of theirs. The mother catches on quickly and then, one night, when showing a masked samurai the way to the road, she gets an idea to stop all of this. The horror the young woman feels upon seeing this demon in the fields feels true until the horror becomes set upon the deceiver. Those final shots of the unmasked woman will leave your jaw agape. No one should dismiss this disturbing classic.

Finally gout around to watching this. It's been sitting on my "unwatched pile" for about 6 months now.

Very strange erotic thriller from the 60s. The pacing seemed a bit off. Pretty much the bulk of the plot occurs in the last 20 minutes.

Still, those last 20 minutes were genuinely chilling.

I want that mask.

Onibaba by Kaneto Shindo


How could I even forget listing as one of my favorites this magnificent 1960's film that was so way ahead of its time? Not only after watching it again did I marveled at how beautiful and haunting this film truly is, but it made me realize I have been truly remiss in watching old movies. I've had the pleasure of watching it again recently.

Onibaba, directed by Kaneto Shindo plucks at a very interesting subject. Two women who survived the grittier times with their men in the battlefield by murdering unsuspecting Samurais and looting them of their belonging. We can all just imagine at how this is such a shameful way to die and we can be sure, their souls are screaming into the Yomi at this injustice and their wah tortured for all eternity. This is how they survived and the mother and the daughter in-law were so good as partners in this grisly means of a hand to mouth existence. But their new-found partnership was rudely interrupted upon the entry of a young man into their almost psychopathic serene life.

This is where the story starts to take you into a darker exploration of lust and desire, jealousy and envy as the daughter-in law cavorts and releases all her pent-up sexual emotion while the mother watches and discovered her own lust as well. This is erotism in black and white touched by a subtle pacing into an unavoidable tragedy. It is as if every scene is somewhat preparing you for such an eventual ending.

The perfect execution of the scenes in black and white lends it a haunting yet eerie feel. Makes you think of yet another old cinema marvel, the psychological drama, Woman in the Dunes.

Note that the score is for the "upgraded" version, the one with new-age music, added color tints and fluorescent text. The new-age music is the only thing that really pushes the score down though, because the color tints and the text aren't too distracting. I'd give the original version a 7, because of the great gothic imagery created throughout the movie, which in turns is a bit tedious.

Onibaba
directed by Kaneto Shindo (1964)

Onibaba is a horror film covered by thick residue; a residue of all the fears and evil of those on the edge of destruction. Two women - poor and destitute, ravaged by a wartime era - revert to killing soldiers gone astray. They dispose of each body down a dark, strangely erie hole in the middle of a wild field of grass. The real valuables lie in the soldier's armor and swords, which they sell for whatever they can get their hands on. Visually marvelous, serene flowing fields swarm the landscape, helped by the perfect forecast of light and shadow. The day is sweltering, and desperate, the night, as close to a living nightmare as anyone can imagine. It's no kidding that the youngest girl in the movie only goes anywhere at night running, almost for her life. People dwell in savage heat at all times, only expecting more punishment. Sex, pre-marriage, is the temptful sin in the film, but on closer inspection, not the theme itself. This sin, be it natural or evil in a time of unnatural evil coils around your bones, delicately breaking them. It may be an illusion, a fantasy, a creation, but that doesn't make the utter despair that floats along the land imaginary. The insanity of Onibaba is brilliant. This is where devils come to play.

(10 out of 10)

Onibaba: Fantastic film, great cinematography, story and acting. It has a veriety of elements yet is one of the most simple films I've ever seen. It fits on so many levels, it is slow paced, yet it doesn't drag even for a second, it's story is simple and doesn't have very many characters, yet it keeps progressing.

Rocky IV: Completely cheesy, just Sly putting up a big tower to knock down, and the cold war element can only be called corny, but still it's fun, and Sly knows it, that's why he kept making the Rocky franchise.