Skip to main content

Part of the company you keep!

Onibaba (Japanese, 1964)
Director: Kaneto Shindō

Many stories tell us to be wary of the company we keep with. Like how Amma frequently reminds us, a calf, if it moves around with piglets, will eventually join the piglets and source its daily meals from the rubbish dump. An animal, placed high in Hindu society, will ultimately do unholy things depending on the company it keeps. 

There is something special about black-and-white movies and the horror genre. It reminds me of my childhood, when my sisters and I would flock around our home 16" TV, squinting to watch RTM's Friday offering of Cerita Pontianak. Even the poor makeup of Pontianak would scare the living daylights out of my sister. She would even be scared to enter the kitchen. To make it worse, I would hide around the corner and jump suddenly in front of her, making her scream!

Onibaba is a classic Japanese movie set in the Samurai era. Times are bad. All the territories are at loggerheads; all men are out to fight, and the women have to rough it out, scavenging on whatever comes their way, stealing from travellers, catching dogs for meals and selling loots. A lady and her daughter-in-law desperately try to survive in that climate. A neighbour, who returns from war, informs them that the lady's son died, not in the war, but while stealing food. The lady blames the neighbour for the son's death. The neighbour seduces the young widow, but the lady is not very happy about it. The lady's daughter-in-law, the young widow, is secretly in love with him and has secret trysts in the dark of the night. The lady comes to know of this and tries to prevent her.

One day, as the lady follows the daughter-in-law to one of these late-night meetings, she is stopped by a mask-donning samurai at knife-point. The lady tricks the samurai by pushing him into a pit. She removes his mask and wears it to scare her daughter-in-law. It works, but the mask gets stuck to her face after getting wet in the rain. After forcefully removing the mask, the lady and her daughter-in-law discover that her face has peeled off and is disfigured. The daughter-in-law runs away scared. The lady falls into the same pit and dies.

A chilling movie. Introduces the Hannya masks, usually used in Japanese Noh theatres, typically representing a jealous female demon.


Labels:
Location: Kyoto, Japan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gory historic details or gore fest?

Razakar:  The Silent Genocide Of Hyderabad  (Telegu, 2024) Director:  Yata Satyanarayana In her last major speech before her disposition, Sheikh Hasina accused those who opposed her rule in Bangladesh of being Razakars. The opposition took offence to this term and soon widespread mob throughout the land. Of course, it is not that that single incident brought down an elected government but a culmination of joblessness and unjust reservations for a select population group. In the Bengali psyche, Razakar is a pejorative term meaning traitor or Judas. It was first used during the 1971 Pakistan Civil War. The paramilitary group who were against the then-East Pakistani leader, Majibur Rehman, were pro-West Pakistan. After establishing independence in Bangladesh, Razakars were disbanded, and many ran off to Pakistan. Around the time of Indian independence, turmoil brewed in the princely state of Hyderabad, which had been a province deputed by the Mughals from 1794. The rule of N...
Post a Comment
Read more

The products of a romantic star of the yesteryear!

Now you see all the children of Gemini Ganesan (of four wives, at least) posing gleefully for the camera after coming from different corners of the world to see the ailing father on his deathbed. They seem to found peace with the contributor of their half of their 46 chromosomes. Sure, growing up must have been hell seeing their respective mothers shedding tears, indulgence in unhealthy activities with one of them falling prey to the curse of the black dog, hating the sight of each step sibling, their respective heartaches all because of the evil done by one man who could not put his raging testesterones under check! Perhaps,the flashing lights and his dizzying heights that his career took clouded his judgement. After all, he was only human... Gems of Gemini Ganesan L-R: Dr Revathi Swaminathan, Narayani Ganesan, Dr Kamala Selvaraj, Rekha, Vijaya Chamundeswari   and Dr Jaya Shreedhar.  ( Abs:  Radha Usman Syed, Sathish Kumaar Ganesan) Seeing six of Ge...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chicken's Invite? (Ajak-ajak ayam)

In the Malay lingo, the phrase 'ajak-ajak ayam' refers to an insincere invitation. Of course, many of us invite for courtesy's sake, but then the invitee may think that the invitation is for real! How does anyone know? Inviters and invitees must be smart enough to take the cue that one party may have gatecrashed with ulterior motives, or the other may not want him to join in the first place! Easily twenty years ago, my family was invited to a toddler's birthday party. As my children were toddlers, too, we were requested to come early so that my kids could run around and play in their big compound. And that the host said she would arrange a series of games for them to enjoy. So there we were in the early evening at a house that resembled very little of one immersed in joy and celebration. Instead, we were greeted by a house devoid of activities and no guests. The host was still out shopping her last-minute list, and her helper was knee-deep in her preparations to ...
2 comments
Read more