[ravenus]

KWAIDAN - Masaki Kobayashi

A set of 4 ghost stories, the last one left incomplete.
3 of the stories were shot well, but the fact that the stories were very slight and rather too predictable for the horror fan reduced their value for me. I'll talk about what I felt was the best episode in the lot

Hoichi the Earless

Hoichi's story is of a blind youth in a monastery who is called by a mysterious visitor to perform his rendition of the legend of the courageous Heike clan - not realizing that his visior comes from the spectral world and that he is actually performing for the ghosts of the Heike nobility. Sensing danger to his person, the priest has Hoichi's body painted over with holy scripture to render him invisible to the spectres, but something goes horribly wrong and the consequences are macabre.

With the advantage of a script that actually fills the bulk of its shooting length, Kobayashi has provided us with one of the most ravishing, sumptuous, GODLIKE visual experiences on screen. He often uses painted backdrops and the visual tones have a richness that suggests a painting more than a photograph. The composition and arrangement of shots is simply MASTERFUL, no two ways about it. Some annoyances like hastily bunged in slapstick humor but even that notwithstanding it remains indeed an awesome experience that one has been fortunate enough to face.