Podcast Macabre ‘26
6/52

My first feature length Kurosawa viewing, what a treat! I always appreciate a film that leaves me thinking, “I’m not entirely sure what I just experienced, but I know that I dig it!” I don’t mind in the slightest that I came out of this with some significant gaps of understanding—it just worked so well for me on both a technical and emotional level. There’s a real darkness present throughout this film that’s incredibly visceral and hard to articulate.

To state the obvious, Cure is an editing masterclass. Kurosawa’s use of sound in particular made the experience feel like a hypnotic exercise for the audience. As we move through the film, the viewer has an experience similar to those hypnotised by Mamiya, where we’re subjected to jump cuts, dream sequences, and hallucinations, all while lights flicker and flash alongside a cacophony of ambient noise. We view the unreliable narrative events of the film through the lens of Takabe’s own fragmentation and imminent hypnotism, as we become hypnotised by the experience of viewing this film—one which expertly blurs lines to ultimately leave us sitting dazed in the wake of it all, with a purposeful lack of clarity and overt explanation.

LOVED this.

#10: Highest rated on watchlist