HoopTober 8: Mosquito Takes Mandragon

Movie 32
5th of 6 Asian horror films

I’ve always been struck by the minimalist austerity of a lot of Japanese art. It seems so refined, in a way – somehow transcendent of other artistic aesthetics. That’s not to say I think minimalism is superior to anything else, but there’s something impressive about a culture which can develop those ideas so profoundly. Or equally, maybe there’s something a little terrifying to the European mindset in that – the sort of discipline and self-denial that minimalism can demand.

I don’t mean to be too lofty, but this approach to art absolutely saturates Kwaidan. Every moment, every frame of this three hour opus feels like it was the result of days of monomaniacal dedication and concentration. And the other thing that struck me is how odd that for a culture in which minimalism is so prevalent, their film tradition seems more likely to embrace a kind of exuberant maximalism, such that Kwaidan stands out.

I realise my perception is skewed because most of the Japanese cinema I know and love is deeply rooted in the exploitation scene. I’ve never seen an Ozu film or experienced what might be considered the more worthy, high art Japanese cinema – and it might just be that Kwaidan is more representative of that tradition than it is to other Japanese horror films.

This is an anthology of four stories over the three hour running time, which means even the shorter ones have ample space to breathe and develop. And they really do take their time. To say the film is uneventful would be misleading: we get ghosts, maggoty corpses, snow vampires, large sea battles, misty graveyards… there’s plenty of meat on this bone. But this is slow-motion cinema reminiscent of Tarkovsky, but with a sumptuous high art gloss. The film is absolutely beautiful and actually quite creepy at times. This is probably essential viewing for fans of Japanese horror, and a gap in my own viewing whose filling has been long overdue (and the first of many Masaki Kobayashi films I will be sure to check out)