This silent film was thought lost for decades
until the director Teinosuke Kinugasa found it among his possessions
in the 1970's. It is a shame he didn't have copies for all of his films because
so many have been lost. But if he were to find only one of his silent films,
this would certainly be a good choice. It is an astonishing visual experimental
film with horrific images, rapid cutting and editing as if on an overdose
of a mix of some hallucinogenic drug and speed, usage of double and triple
exposures, vivid distortion and an all around feeling of nothing being real.
Of the world going out of control. All this accompanied by a musical score
- written for this after being re-discovered - that is jittery and powerful.
This is not so much a tone poem as a tone nightmare. I have a bad feeling
that I will have some weird dreams tonight. And to add to the sense of dread,
it nearly all takes place in an insane asylum.
My version had no intertitles (I don't think any of them do) - but smarter
people than me have pieced together a plot of sorts - not that it matters
all that much. A man gets a job in the asylum as the janitor because his
wife is a patient. He hopes to escape with her but instead seems to go mad
himself. It is really all about the technique and the horrific faces of the
inmates - there are two amazing scenes -one when the patients riot and go
into a frenzy - the other when he tries to escape with her against her will
and the patients close around him. And then they put on Kabuki masks which
was creepy. It is a delirium of emotions and movement. I don't have the cinematic
language to explain all this - I just know by the end I felt very disturbed
by the imagery and music. It is not a horror film per se but many horror
elements are here and it made me think that some Japanese horror film back
when they were knocking them out like pancakes should have had a plot that
when people see this undiscovered film they go insane. It is up on Youtube,
I believe.
