Kwaidan

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Movie
German title Kwaidan
Original title 怪 談
Kaidan
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1964
length 183 minutes
Rod
Director Masaki Kobayashi
script Yōko Mizuki
music Tōru Takemitsu
camera Yoshio Miyajima
cut Hisashi Sagara
occupation

Kwaidan (original title: 怪 談 , Kaidan , Japanese for "ghost stories") is a Japanese anthology horror film by the Tōhō studios from 1964 . Directed by the renowned director Masaki Kobayashi . Lafcadio Hearn's collection of Japanese ghost stories, Kwaidan - Strange Stories and Studies from Japan, served as a template for the film . Kwaidan was nominated for an Oscar in 1966 for Best Foreign Language Film and was awarded the Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1965 .

content

The film tells four stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collection of Japanese ghost stories in imaginative and surreal images : Kurokami , Yukionna , Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi and Chawan no Naka .

Kurokami

“Kurokami” ( 黒 髪 , translated “The Black Hair”) tells the story of an impoverished samurai who divorced his wife in order to escape the “poor world” in which he lives. He leaves his wife and instead marries the daughter of a rich and powerful entrepreneur in order to gain wealth. But the daughter turns out to be a selfish wife. The samurai cannot cope with the decadence and selfishness of his wife and soon he begins to think of his first wife, who, as his fears tell him, still suffers from her poverty far away from him and has to work day and night. He escapes, back to the woman he really loves. She doesn't seem to have aged a bit in all the time her former husband has been away and the samurai promises her that he will never part with her again. But after one night comes the rude awakening.

Yukionna

" Yukionna " ( 雪女 , translated "The Snow Woman") is about the lumberjack Minokichi. He and his friend find shelter in a hut during a snowstorm, as neither of them have a chance of getting home on this stormy evening. The following night, Minokichi is haunted by a female figure who bends over his friend and lets him die in one breath. After his death, the woman from the snow also bends over the young woodcutter, but out of pity she lets him escape - with the warning that she will kill him immediately if he tells even one person about that night. Time goes by, Minokichi returns home and doesn't tell anyone about this experience. One day he meets a young woman with whom he falls in love and so it happens that they both marry and the woman gives birth to three healthy children. But the woman reminds Minokichi more and more of the woman who haunted him on the stormy night in the hut and is responsible for the death of his friend.

Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi

"Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi" ( 耳 無 芳 一 の 話 , translated "The story of the earless Hōichi") tells the story of a Buddhist monk named Hoichi who lives in the Amida temple. The temple is home to the spirits of the Heike clan who fell at the Battle of Dan-no-ura . Hoichi is famous for its vocal telling of the story of the Heikes. He accompanies his stories on his Biwa . One night he was sitting alone in the temple when he heard a voice calling him: “There are people of high standing who want your stories, please come with me.” Hoichi is brought into a large hall with many guests, men and women. From now on, Hoichi goes out of the temple every night. The high priest, alarmed by the daily exits from Hoichi, has him followed by the other monks of the temple. To their surprise, they find Hoichi in a cemetery, in front of the Heikes gravestones, lost in his stories. The monks bring Hoichi back to the temple.

The priest understands that Hoichi was lured out of the temple by evil spirits of the Heikes, who wanted to hear him tell the story of their decline. Concerned that Hoichi is in danger, the priest writes Buddhist protection words all over Hoichi's body and advises him to sit still and not make a sound when the spirits return.

Chawan no Naka

In “Chawan no Naka” ( 茶碗 の 中 , translated “In a cup of tea”) the main character is a warrior who one day sees a face in a cup when he is pouring tea into it. Followed by this face in the tea, a little later he finds himself facing the man to whom this face belongs. It is a ghost that the terrified warrior wounds with his sword. Even if this ghost never appears to the warrior again, the incident will have fatal consequences for him, because one evening after three ambassadors from the injured man appear, who prophesy that he will have to atone for his deed.

occupation

production

Kwaidan was created exclusively with post-synchronization, on gigantic, artificial studio sets, the lighting is surreal and the music by Toru Takemitsu consists only of disturbing sound effects. In this style, four traditional Japanese ghost stories are told, which come from the pen of the writer Lafcadio Hearn, a citizen of the western world who moved to the United States in 1869 before settling in Japan, where he took the name Yakumo Koizumi and there folkloric He wrote stories that completely slander his Western origins in their Asian gesture of psychological horror.

Web links

Texts of the adapted stories for Kwaidan

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The 38th Academy Awards (1966) Nominees and Winners . In: oscars.org . Retrieved November 6, 2011.
  2. ^ Festival de Cannes: Kwaidan . In: festival-cannes.com . Retrieved March 4, 2009.