The world itself feels empty of joy and life in Onibaba (1965), a psychologically twisted drama directed by Kaneto Shindo that has the look and atmosphere of a surreal horror thriller. As the characters struggle to survive a land devastated by war, hunger drives them to commit murder, and repressed desires push them toward insanity and possibly supernatural punishment.
Onibaba has a plausible, real-world context, and its characters have believable, human motivations, but the effect is one of dream-like fantasy. The dialogue is limited, the performances of heightened physical intensity that at times feel like Kabuki. The setting is largely self-contained, as if nothing else exists beyond what the characters see, and there's nowhere else they can escape to.
The opening scene depicts two wounded and exhausted soldiers trudging through a nearly impenetrable sea of overgrown susuki grass, filmed from overhead so we can the path they cut (I am reminded of a similar shot Spielberg used in The Lost World to show raptors closing in on human hunters), and the film quickly establishes its strange, isolated, almost alien setting.
Nature itself is hostile, cold, and dark, captured by the camera in stark black and white. Anything can be lurking in this field of shadows, even evil spirts, although it's more than likely desperate people who will stab you before you even know they're there.
The two women, never named, have only each other, living in a tiny hut in the middle of this massive field overrun by tall, thick grass, far away from other people or much in the way of civilization. War and poverty have driven them to desperate measures, and in many ways, they stand in for the countless others touched by human conflict: their peace and livelihood has been destroyed, there is no help coming, and so they do what they must to survive. They dump their victims' bodies in a pit, a portal to death itself.
The arrival of Hachi signals the arrival of other needs, beyond food and shelter: sex. The young woman has not seen her husband in a long time, and even the older woman - whose own husband goes unmentioned - has been long unsatisfied in that regard. The older woman warns her daughter-in-law to stay away from Hachi, saying he'll only cause trouble, but it's clear she's less concerned about the young woman's wellbeing than she is jealous (not mention afraid of losing the one person who provides her with any kind of support). She herself propositions Hachi, and his mocking rejection - calling her old and ugly - is another twist of the metaphorical knife.
Shindo toys the line between mundane and supernatural, making us question what we see. When the older woman encounters a masked samurai, who claims he wears his mask to protect his unbelievably handsome face, we wonder if he's on the up-and-up or if he's a demon in disguise. He asks her to guide him through the grass, at night, and we feel her apprehension about leading this stranger, who may not be human, into the darkness.
Despite the feudal setting (and being almost 60 years old), Onibaba does not feel dated. The period setting creates a timeless feeling, and Shindo's employs fast editing cuts, unorthodox camera angles, and off-kilter uses of sound and music that feel modern by our standards. The result is an intense, unsettling story of passion, lust, and jealousy that plays like a nightmare.
On a related note, I recommend Hagridden by Samuel Snoek-Brown. I didn't realize it at the time I read the book, but Hagridden transplants a similar story to the 1860s Louisiana bayou as the Civil War winds down. Snoek-Brown's style can be described as Southern Gothic by way of Cormac McCarthy: bleak, desolate, sparse, and unsettling.
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