While her son is at war, a woman and her daughter-in-law are raped and murdered by samurai. They return as vengeful spirits, seducing samurai to their deaths. A young man returns from battle a war hero, charged with destroying whoever is killing the samurai. An unsettling supernatural tale, set in feudal Japan, Kuroneko ranks alongside the filmmakers other masterpieces, The Naked Island and Onibaba.
Kelli Weston, bfi.org.uk
Kaneto Shindo’s hyper-stylised take on Japan’s classic ghost cat formula does for bamboo what the director’s previous supernatural parable Onibaba (1964) did for bulrushes. Their towering, swaying forms picked out among the abyssal darkness dominate the aesthetic.
Set during a time of civil war in the medieval Heian era, it’s a tale of rape, murder and revenge in which the restless spirits of a mother and her daughter-in-law return from the grave, reincarnated with the spirit of a black cat, to seduce and murder the unruly mob of soldiers responsible for their deaths.
The masterful use of light and shadow, and the repetition and re-staging of key sequences with subtle variations, create a minimalistic dreamscape in which emptiness becomes a crucial thematic and compositional component.
Jasper Sharp, bfi.org.uk, 22 March 2018
Much less extravagant than Shindo’s earlier excursion into ghostly horrors with Onibaba – no lovers baying at the moon, no demon mask, no pit of corpses –Kuroneko is (albeit erratically) more of a mood piece.
It opens brilliantly with a long-held, angled shot of a clearing where a thatched cottage nestles cosily, a stream trickles past the front door, and the long grass gently stirs as the forest in the background suddenly becomes alive with prowling samurai. With their attack and rape of the two women, the style changes abruptly into crude, leering close-ups; then back again to contemplation as the samurai drift back into the forest, a cricket chirps in the empty clearing, and smoke slowly begins to billow from the cottage as it catches fire. This uncertainty of rhythm continues through the film, turning it into an uncomfortable mixture of graceful atmospherics and crude shock effects.
At its best, it is fleetingly reminiscent of Ugetsu Monogatari (the ghostly ladies welcoming their prey in the shadowy house), of Kwaidan (the journeys through the bamboo forest), of The Revenge of Yukinojo (the acrobatic tumbling out of the darkness by the feline monsters). The similarities, alas, are never sustained: the formal welcome to the ghost house and the mother’s enigmatic, hieratic dance as her daughter woos the visitor give way to silly junketings around the bed; the splendid shot of the great gateway, with the shimmering figure of the ghost high on the parapet to lure unwary samurai, startlingly beautiful the first time round, is subsequently simply repeated, rather lamely; and the dreamlike journey through the bamboo forest, also repeated several times, is usually cut off in mid flow with an insensitivity to rhythm which neither Mizoguchi nor Kobayashi would have permitted.
Nevertheless, for all its fits and starts, Kuroneko has a sufficiently ingenious story to remain enjoyable throughout, and it sporadically discovers moments of genuinely bizarre invention: the ladies somersaulting, amid billowing draperies, high above their intended victims as they ride through the forest; the monster (human) at bay with its own severed arm (feline) clutched in its teeth; the sudden, tell-tale cut into spectral slow motion as a woman walking along a forest path daintily jumps a puddle. Above all, the soundtrack is a marvel – even by Japanese standards – of care and cunning. With its carefully orchestrated symphony of natural sounds, miaows, grunts, shrieks, soughing winds, and Kabuki plops and bangs, it is an entire entertainment in itself, and very nearly holds the whole film together.
Tom Milne, Monthly Film Bulletin, April 1979
KURONEKO (YABU NO NAKA NO KURONEKO)
Director: Kaneto Shindo
Production Companies: Kindai Eiga Kyokai, Nihon Eiga Shinsha
Executive Producers: Nobuyo Horiba, Setsuo Noto, Kazuo Kuwahara
Screenplay: Kaneto Shindo
Director of Photography: Kiyomi Kuroda
Lighting: Shoichi Tabata
Editor: Hisao Enoki
Art Director: Takashi Marumo
Make-up: Shigeo Kobayashi
Music: Hikaru Hayashi
Sound: Tetsuya Ohashi
Cast
Kichiemon Nakamura (Gintoki)
Nobuko Otowa (Yone)
Kiwako Taichi (Shige)
Kei Sato (Raiko)
Hideo Kanze (Mikado)
Rokko Toura (samurai)
Taiji Tonoyama (farmer)
Japan 1968
95 mins
IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS
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Mon 17 Oct 20:50; Sun 13 Nov 15:50 (+ intro by Silent Film Curator Bryony Dixon); Sat 19 Nov 14:10
Frankenstein
Tue 18 Oct 20:50; Fri 28 Oct 18:20; Tue 8 Nov 18:20; Sun 27 Nov 13:00
The Skeleton Key
Wed 19 Oct 18:00; Mon 14 Nov 20:45
Meet the Monsters: A Season Introduction
Thu 20 Oct 19:30 BFI YouTube
I Walked With a Zombie
Thu 20 Oct 20:40; Tue 1 Nov 18:10
Creature from the Black Lagoon (3D)
Sat 22 Oct 18:15 (+ pre-recorded intro by Mallory O’Meara, award winning and bestselling author of ‘The Lady from the Black Lagoon’); Sat 29 Oct 11:40; Tue 1 Nov 20:50
In Dreams Are Monsters Quiz
Sun 23 Oct 19:00-22:00 Blue Room
Kuroneko (Yabu no naka no kuroneko)
Tue 25 Oct 20:45; Mon 31 Oct 21:00; Fri 18 Nov 18:15
The Fly
Wed 26 Oct 21:00
La Llorona
Thu 27 Oct 20:30; Mon 7 Nov 21:00
Celluloid Screams and Live Cinema UK presents: Ghostwatch + Q&A
Fri 28 Oct 20:20
Viy
Fri 28 Oct 20:45; Tue 8 Nov 20:50
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Sat 29 Oct 18:30; Wed 30 Nov 20:50
Candyman
Sat 29 Oct 20:45; Thu 17 Nov 20:50 (+ intro)
Nightbreed – Director’s Cut
Sun 30 Oct 15:10 (+ intro); Sat 12 Nov 20:35
28 Days Later
Mon 31 Oct 18:00 (+ Q&A with director Danny Boyle); Sat 26 Nov 20:45
Us
Tue 1 Nov 20:40; Sat 19 Nov 15:10; Tue 29 Nov 20:40
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Wed 2 Nov 18:10; Sat 26 Nov 20:40
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
Wed 2 Nov 20:45; Sat 19 Nov 20:45
Blacula
Thu 3 Nov 20:55; Sat 26 Nov 13:00
Cronos
Fri 4 Nov 18:30; Sat 19 Nov 12:10; Sun 20 Nov 18:30
Fright Night
Fri 4 Nov 20:50; Tue 22 Nov 20:40 (+ intro)
Possession
Sat 5 Nov 20:20 (+ intro by author Kier-La Janisse); Sun 27 Nov 15:30
Ganja & Hess
Mon 7 Nov 18:00; Sat 26 Nov 15:20
Inferno
Wed 9 Nov 20:40; Sat 26 Nov 18:20
The Entity
Fri 11 Nov 17:55; Tue 15 Nov 20:30
Def by Temptation
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Jennifer’s Body
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Pontypool
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Under the Shadow
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Ouija: Origin of Evil
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Pet Sematary
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Good Manners (As Boas Maneiras)
Sun 27 Nov 18:10; Wed 30 Nov 20:25
IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS EVENTS
City Lit at BFI: Screen Horrors – Screen Monsters
Thu 20 Oct – Thu 15 Dec 18:30-20:30
Beyond Nollywood World Premiere: Inside Life + Q&A with director Clarence A Peters
Sat 29 Oct 14:00
Matchbox Cine presents House of Psychotic Women
Sat 5 Nov 17:50
Son of Ingagi + Panel Discussion
Wed 9 Nov 18:10
Live Commentary with Evolution of Horror, Brain Rot and The Final Girls
Sat 19 Nov 18:00
Big Monster Energy
Tue 22 Nov 18:30
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Programme notes and credits compiled by the BFI Documentation Unit
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