Seance

I cannot remember being scared by a movie like this. "The Sixth Sense" had very scary parts, but this was scary throughout. Writer/director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who showed us what he could do when he transformed the thriller "Cure" into a chilling horror-like ending, now brings us pure horror with "Séance (Korei)". If you think the little girl in Poltergeist or the Exorcist are scary, you've never been haunted by a little girl before. Kurosawa makes this little darling so creepy that you might see her in the streets for the next few days (I'm slightly exaggerating here, but aren't movies always a bit exaggerated). Which is not exaggerated, however, is the skill Kurosawa has to entrance the viewer in a slow cumulating fear that creeps up from the bottom of your spine and spread through your shivering body. He uses hallways, shadows, rooms and corners like a magician and makes you feel right in the middle of the action, frightened, expecting and not knowing what to do.

Visually mesmerizing (unintentional reference to what we learn in "Cure"), "Seance" still has a solid story which puts characters in an interesting situation and begs the audience to think "what would you do if this happened to you?". Acting is very potent, especially from lead actor Koji Yakusho. The story has enough twists and turns to keep you captivated and some actual substance as to the role of the paranormal in today's society. What endures undoubtedly, is the atmosphere of fright.

If you want to see a scary movie, see this one.

Note: For those who think this is a "Sixth Sense" knock-off, please be advised that this movie was made in Japan and that there were ghost stories there way before Hollywood. I saw this movie at a special screening, in the presence of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and he was telling us that he based the idea for the ghosts in his story on various credible people he knows who claim that they actually witnessed ghost apparitions. It was a recurring theme that the room seemed colder when they appeared, so he made the breath visible to indicate that. The fact that he portrayed them without a face was his own interpretation and what he wished to express to the viewer.

This movie should not be seen as a straightforward ghost movie, nor as a basic series of set-ups, struggles and resolutions. It is a gripping movie, masterfully shot, bleak in its vision yet assembled with an inspiring meticulousness.

Junco is a psychic who feels trapped by her extra-sensory powers in more than one way. For one, she cannot hold a regular job, despite her best efforts. She is also aware that her gift will never be completely understood or taken seriously by the public at large, not even by those who seek her help.

When a freak coincidence lands a missing girl in her husband Katsuhiko's hardware case - after the police, as a last resort, has asked for her advice about the case - she sees it as a possible opportunity to make a name for herself as a serious and respected psychic, while clearing her husband and her of any responsibility in the girl's disappearance. She sees a way out the couple's humdrum, boring life, and her husband wants to believe it too. Needless to say, not much goes according to plan.

**NOTE** About the doppelganger appearing in the movie, as mentionned in a comment below. The double does represent impending death for Katsuhiko. The decision to have him burn his double alive was a way to show how he is not willing to accept a fate he has not chosen.

I am a great fan of Kurosawa's movies, yet I find this film a weak shadow of his usual work. I think this comes in large measure from his own statement that this film is a combination of a horror movie combined with a crime movie and the original 1960s story. It seems just too convoluted to succeed. On top of that, he claims that there were numerous rewritings of the 1960s story to fit it into the real world, whatever that means. The Left Elbow Index considers seven elements in film--acting, production sets, dialogue, plot, film continuity, character development, and artistry--on a scale from 10 for very good to 5 for average and to 1 for it needs some help. The acting, production sets, and dialogue are all rated average. The acting seems stilted and seems better timed to fit a soap. The production sets appear to be little more than what one sees in one's daily environs. And the dialogue seems to fit modern life, no great philosophies and no great blunders. The plot is rated weak since it appears difficult to sort out important elements of plot from trivial events in the film. The elements of plot and the emotional level of the film seem not to fit together well, even the suspense scenes appear hollow. The film continuity appears upset by the episodic TV nature of the juxtaposition of scenes, which seems to present too much clutter. I wonder why film makers tend towards putting characters in autos and driving them in and out of scenes, like Roy Rogers cowboy movies. We know how Roy got to and from where ever he was going, must he always be seen jumping on and off Trigger? There seems little character development to speak of, probably because the characters do not appear to be in a suspense, a horror story, or the real world. The artistry is rated as average, keeping in mind that average for Kurosawa is excellent for others. The close-ups are good and there are some interesting camera angles. The Left Elbow Index average is 3.3, up to a 5.0 when equated with the IMDb scale. The film is worth seeing, as any of Kurosawa's work is, but don't expect the master at his best.

Overall, this movie (and Cure for that matter) is nicely done. With Seance, appropriately, a lot of negative space mise-en-scene was deftly carried out; with Cure, narrative as well as formal (eg spliced split-second frames, abrupt scene cuts etc) ellipses are done well with good editing. I liked the continuity of both the protagonist and the restaurant (albeit from a different shooting angle) through both films. My only problem with it (and Cure) is that sometimes the aesthetics feels contrived, and the understatement/'minimalism' is, ironically, overwrought & cliché. There's no greatness here (in terms of psychological horror/terror, there are much more genius auteurs in both the East and West, eg the 'other' Kurosawa's Rashomon and Polanski's earlier films, to name a few respectively), but it has thought, and is still better than 90% of the sh*t out there.

My first movie at Viennale'2000 and it is this one! I have never seen it before and therefore didn't know anything about it, but I have never expected to see something wonderful like this.

In it's 95 minutes running time I was thrilled, there wasn't a single minute when I was bored, or distracted. The main actors played really great and the whole ambiente of the movie set was excellent.

Sure he used a bit "6th sense", as you can see the breath and the dead people, but IMO it's much better than the 6th sense!

If you can watch this movie, do it! Don't wait, don't hesitate, it's absolute worth the time!