Chime

Keeping its secrets guarded and living off the shocks of its knife-edge turns, Chime sees Kiyoshi Kurosawa covering more than familiar ground with plenty of desolate moodscapes, recognisable for anyone with even a cursory knowledge of his past output. However, there is something particularly chilling about the oppressive mundanity here, a mundanity to which Koichi Furuya's digital cinematography adds another layer of dread. It's a dreary madness that slowly begins seeping into the life of its character. Despite its skeletal form and brief runtime, the film ends on a fascinating rupture; the previously ambient evil becoming tangible shifts, terrifyingly, within the realm of possibility and the suggestion of this curse being made concrete becomes overbearing. Relishing in the awful psychological residues of violence while suggesting a lucid dream, the kind of fragmented nightmare you are grateful to wake up from but just as terrified to leave so unresolved.

I thought I'd give it a try. A 6.8 on the IMDB is pretty good for a horror movie, and I am a vivid Horror fan, but boy was I duped! It started OK. A Japanese town is shown in quite a depressive looking view. But then...... a knive, and another knive, and lots of cans in plastic bags. Why are there so many cans in plastic bags? I just didn't get it. Did I miss the story somewhere. The movie is 45 minutes, so is the story in the missing minutes. What happened? Why. A teacher who hears a noise, am I deaf. What noise. What the f.... did happen in this movie. Yes, a beautiful tree outside the building. Oh that's the end....what happened. What was I watching?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's latest psychological horror is a masterful exercise in suspense and terror.

Provided you can get onboard with its enigmatic (and nearly incomprehensible) plot, there's much to enjoy here for fans of the director. The running time is short (only 45 minutes), making this something of a compact version of Kurosawa's usual, subtle horror filmmaking. There's a lot of atmosphere and intrigue present throughout, but little to no answers to some of the film's central questions.

While this is certainly a violent little film, it's not focused on gore, but rather its capability to disturb by mere suggestion. It's pretty great to see Kurosawa back at directing unsettling films that turn the mundane into terrifying, and Chime shows he's still got some interesting ideas to share with the rest of us.

Recommended.

Let's get things straight: this short is not for everyone. Perhaps even more so than feature-length works of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. It's mundane, it doesn't care about answering questions or following the traditional rules of storytelling. You shouldn't try to decode it from the point of everyday rationality or even the traditional cinema structure.

Instead, the movie is interested into raising an issue that was already present The Cure, updating it and setting the mood that compliments the idea. From my point of view, it's not so much a movie about depression, but a movie about the virus of violence that infects those who're troubled with their lives. As the movie progresses, we feel that the virus of violence spreads more and more. I think in a current day and age it's a really important idea, because sometimes I feel like the violence starts capturing minds of more and more people even in their everyday life.

The lonely and mundane tone complements this idea by suggesting on how this disconnected, distant and superficial relationships complement the development of the virus.

So yeah, I don't think it's the best of Kurosawa, but still, I feel like it's an interesting and important short movie. Just please, don't try to watch it as a conventional horror movie or even a conventional movie in general.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Chime" is a chilling 45-minute psychological horror film that masterfully blends mundane settings with a growing sense of dread. It tells the story of a middle-aged school teacher who is haunted by a recurring sound, a chime, that fills him with a strange sense of foreboding. As the film progresses, the teacher's life begins to unravel, and he becomes increasingly obsessed with the source of the sound and its unsettling implications.

Kurosawa's signature style is on full display in "Chime," with its deliberate pacing, unsettling atmosphere, and focus on the psychological state of its protagonist. The film's minimalist approach, with its sparse dialogue and focus on visual storytelling, creates a sense of unease and leaves much to the viewer's imagination. The sound design is particularly effective, with the recurring chime serving as a constant reminder of the unseen threat that looms over the teacher.

The film's ending is ambiguous and open to interpretation, leaving viewers to ponder the true meaning of the chime and its impact on the teacher's life. Some may interpret it as a descent into madness, while others may see it as a reflection of the teacher's own inner turmoil and anxieties.

"Chime" is a powerful and thought-provoking film that stays with you long after the credits roll. Its exploration of fear, paranoia, and the fragility of the human mind is both unsettling and unforgettable.