Onibaba - The Slayers

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Movie
German title Onibaba - The Slayers
Original title 鬼 婆 (Onibaba)
Country of production Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1964
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Kaneto Shindo
script Kaneto Shindo
production Toshio Konya
music Hikaru Hayashi
camera Kiyomi Kuroda
cut Toshio Enoki
occupation

Onibaba - The Killer Inside ( jap. 鬼婆 , Onibaba , German as "demon", literally devil women) is in black and white twisted Japanese film drama directed by Kaneto Shindo from the year 1964 . Visually, the film processes elements from Nō theater and horror films, among other things .

action

During a civil war in 14th century Japan , a young woman and her mother-in-law have to do without her husband or son. Since they cannot till the fields alone, they attack injured and unsuspecting samurai , kill them and sell their equipment to an arms dealer. The bodies dispose of them in a large hole in the midst of a miscanthus -Sumpfes in which they live. In the course of the film you never find out their names.

One day her neighbor Hachi returns from the civil war and reports that the husband / son has died. Hachi moves into his old hut in the neighborhood. He keeps an eye on the young woman. When the two begin an initially secret affair, the girl's relationship with her mother-in-law breaks up. The old woman is jealous and fears for her existence because she cannot carry out the robberies that make a living on her own.

When a samurai with a demonic Hannya mask gets lost in the swampy landscape at night, he forces the old woman to lead him out. But she outwits him by leading him through the reeds to the hole in which he falls. She robbed him as usual and took possession of the mask. In harmless conversations, the old woman first convinces her daughter-in-law that there is a hell in which the Buddha punishes the souls for their physical passions. Disguised like a demon in the mask and a white cloth, she lurks in the reeds of her daughter-in-law on her way to the nightly meetings with Hachi. In fact, when the young woman sees the supposed demon, she turns back in panic and horror. The third time there is a strong thunderstorm, the young woman is frightened again. Not much later, however, the old woman reveals her cunning because the mask is too tight and cannot be removed. She confesses everything to her daughter-in-law and begs for help. This can be given the promise to be able to see Hachi day and night and without reproach. First attempts to remove the mask fail. With harder blows with a hammer on the mask, even in spite of the wailing of the old woman, it breaks into two parts. When removing one half, the young woman screams "Demon!" And flees in panic because the old woman's face now looks bloody and leprosy. Apparently, parts of the skin on the face stuck to the mask. The old woman does not notice the disfigurement, tears off the second half, happily screams “She's gone!” And follows her daughter-in-law through the reeds, always shouting the sentence that the samurai, from whom she removed the mask, said to her before she killed him: “I am not a demon. I am a human". Both women jump over the hole in which the killed samurai lie. In the leap of the old, there suddenly comes a black screen and “end”. It remains unclear whether the old woman falls into the hole or not.

Hannya mask

background

The plot of the film is inspired by a parabola of the Shin - Buddhism , the Shindo redesigned for its own purposes. The mask worn in the film is the mask of Hannya ("malicious woman") of Kichiku-mono, a variety of Noh theater, in the center of which an oni (demon) is often the center . The original title Onibaba is a combination of the words Oni ( 鬼 ) and Baba ( 婆 , dt. Old woman).

Onibaba ran on November 21, 1964 in Japan and was shown out of competition at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1965 . The film started on April 22, 1966 in the FRG and on November 22, 1974 in the cinemas of the GDR .

The actress of the "old woman" was 39 years old at the time of the film, the actress of the daughter-in-law was 21.

Reviews

The lexicon of international films wrote that the film was "based on the structure of the plot of classical tragedy" and that "images of delicate poetry stand next to those of brutal realism". The work conveyed "a shocking indictment of war and its demoralizing compulsions". However, the German synchronization of the film is "poor". The Protestant film observer drew the following conclusion: “Despite the excess of the terrible and - above all - the sexual, this author's film, made by the important Kaneto Shindo, moves and shakes. Recommended but only for mature adults with strong nerves. ”“ Erotic horror classic, whose claustrophobic atmosphere amidst billowing zebra grasses and frenetic taiko sounds still gives goose bumps today. ”That's the opinion of the reviewer of the Japanese embassy.

literature

  • Keiko I. McDonald: Reading a Japanese Film: Cinema in Context, University of Hawai'i Press 2006, ISBN 978-0824829933 , p. 108 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Bradshaw: Commission us: Sex, death and long grass in Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba, The Guardian, October 15, 2010, accessed August 29, 2012.
  2. ↑ Essay on the Chuck Stephens film on Criterion.com, accessed August 28, 2012.
  3. ↑ a b press booklet of the German film distributor "neue filmform", Munich.
  4. ↑ Introduction to Nogaku Theater , accessed August 28, 2012.
  5. ^ Onibaba - The Murderesses in the Internet Movie Database .
  6. ↑ a b Onibaba - Die Töterinnen in the lexicon of international filmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  7. ↑ Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 156/1966
  8. ^ Embassy of Japan. News from Japan, No. 51, February 2009.