Onibaba
Shindoo Kaneto
1964
Oni = demon
An important difference with the West is that Japan has no “revealed text”. This seems to be something which occurs largely in the Children of Abraham religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam all of which are “people of the book” - i.e. they have a book which is the revealed word of god. The closest thing to an explanation of how the world comes into being is the Kojiki or “writing of ancient things” It documents the creation story but is in fact nothing more than a report from the court to the Emperor who, puzzled by the various stories he had heard, asked the court to “find out” what really happened. Unable to resolve the problem, they report back with what they heard and respond with “Who knows how it began but this is what people say”. There is as a result no conflict in Japan between science and religion relative to these matters
Since about 600 the emperor has been the head of the religion, Political power was in the hands of military leader called the Shoogun. This situation remained in effect until the Meiji restoration a fairly recent event about the time of the American civil war.
There are many historical periods in Japanese and many are filled with internal wars as different clans fight for political control. No one bothers with the Emperor who is more like a pope, doing rice rituals for good harvest. Who kills anyone so they can do the national rice rituals????
The film is set in the 1300’s
Emperor Go-Daigo overthrows the Bakufu and restores power to the Emperor. The Hojo regency ends with the suicide of many of the Hojo clan. Japan splits into two courts with two different emperors during a long period of civil war.
The more common period for period pieces is during the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate or bakufu which was the last feudal shogunate (1603-1867)
Japanese film has a long history. The early imported films had benshi or “narrators” who related the story (which they did not know) to the audience. So if you saw the same film with different narrators, you might have different stories. (Maybe this is the force for Rashomon).
Although Japanese begin to make films early they come to sound late. There are a number of famous Japanese directors from the time before the war, many who continued to make films after the war. After the war, there was strong censorship from the occupying forces which refused to allow things which glorified the emperor or aspects of the past.
The early post war directors included Kurosawa Akira, Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujiro and Naruse Mikio. Mizoguchi died in 1956 and Ozu in 1963 and Naruse in 1969. Kurosawa died in 1998 making him the last of the “old school” directors. Kurosawa’s first film is 1941 and uncredited.
Shindoo who died in 2010 started his career before Kurosawa but didn’t direct until 1951. He was a script writer who turned director but continued to direct.
Classes of film: jidai geki (ji = time; dai= period geki=drama; period piece)
gendai geki (gen=present dai=period geki=drama modern day).
Chambara are a kind of jidai geki – sword fighting films. Another genre is called “lumpen –mono” films concerned with the degrading lives of the lumpenproleteriat.
Lumpenproletariat is a Marxist term that sdescribe the layer of the working class that will probably never achieve class consciousness and is so is lost to socially useful production, and will therefore not be of any use to the revolutionary struggle, and may in fact hinder it in its realization of a classless society. The word identifies the class of outcasts, degenerates and so on such as beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables.
Shindoo was from a wealthy landlord family that lost everything and became farmers and caused the family to break up.
He belongs to what is known as the middle group of directors – those who come after Kurosawa Akira. Kobayashi Masako who is also from the middle group is the director of Kwaidan.
Shindoo had a reputation as a passionate social critic and was asked to do a film in 1952 about the atomic bombing at the end of WWII. The left wing teacher’s union was unhappy with the film and felt it was a “tear jerker” and was not sufficiently critical of the US which it wanted to be portrayed as seeing the Japanese as animals on which they could experiment. Sekigawa Hideo’s film Hiroshima was more to their liking with a scene in which American tourists arrive to buy souvenir bones of A bomb victims.
His film The Island (1961) is well known here also, and like Onibaba deals with people in the lowest positions in society
The story is based on a Buddhist tale which has been reworked in accordance with Shindoo’s ideas.
Shindoo’s dislike of the feudal system and his attempt to give voices to the lowest classes who are completely ignored in history is foregrounded here.
The film is loaded with imagery
AFTER THE FILM
Earlier Shindoo films are thought of as “purer” ie they lack sexuality This film is seen as the beginning of his “erotic period” The film is bestial in both its killings and sexuality. Much of what one might think of as “cultural trappings” are gone. This sets up a kind of class structure/struggle between the Samurai class and the desperately impoverished, which is not surprising given Shindoo’s somewhat Marxist approach to socialism. Some of his critics have held that his socialism is simplistic
Shindoo works with a level of society which is an outcast one, where they are no longer protected by society and have to survive on their own. Shindoo says they have an immense energy for survival.
Like most films, the story has references to many things. Shindoo is interested in the people who are at the very bottom of the social classes, doing what they have to stay alive.
The sets and setting are important to the film:
The reeds: represent in some ways the world. The characters are basically lost in them and who are lost to outsiders who cannot see the people who live in them.
The armor: A kind of protection against the outside world, but perhaps not enough. Removal of the armor reduces everyone to the same status. That is to say in death everyone is the same.
The mask: The mask and the disfigurement are references to the bodily destruction of many people as a result of the A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this way, Shindoo indicates a relationship between the survivors and these people of the lowest social rung. Japan has some discrimination concerning groups of people within the country. There are the aboriginal people known as the AINU who now live largely to the far north and speak a language apparently unrelated to Japanese. Some writers have compared them to the American Indians in terms of their ethnic positions. Another group called the Eta are an untouchable class like the untouchables in India and are in some ways like them. Then there are the people who are the survivors of the A-bombs whose marriage prospects are next to nil, since there is great worry about the genetic damage done to the people.
The demon mask serves several functions and is contextually interpreted. When on the samurai he uses it ostensibly for protection of his “beautiful” face – one which is not to be shown to lowly peasants. The samurai is lost in the reeds, and can only hope to get out if he can find a guide. The weeds visually dominate the scenes, and the samurai on horses appear above them, but are unaware of what is below them.
The mask operates somewhat differently for the mother. She puts it on to terrify her daughter in law in order to keep her from seeing her new lover. It also serves as a kind of punishment for the mother – perhaps less for killing the samurai than for stopping her daughter in law from finding another man and leaving her alone which would certainly be problematic since doing what they have been doing together might be impossible alone.
Notice the implication that when the mother puts the mask on, she seems to be able to control what is happening. The brilliant lightning flash behind her in the reeds and her ability to stop her daughter in law (at least initially) indicate some control over what goes on in the reeds (i.e. the world), but it is short lived.
What can you say about the nature of the living quarters?
This is a very “dog eat dog” society. Compare the line from The Leopard Man – “The poor don’t cheat the poor”. Not so in this film where the classof the main characters is lower than "the poor".
Sexuality is all people have left. Everything has been removed, like the samurai’s armor – the taking of which is a visual metaphor that everyone loses in this society. Sex is also an indication of continuation of life.
Baba = old woman
Japan lies east of the Asian mainland and is made up of four major islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyusho. Most of the major cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Yokohama, Nara) are on Honshu. The population is around 120 million people. Buddhism and Shinto are the dominant religions with an estimated 92 million practicing Shinto and 89 million practicing Buddhism. There are a sprinkling of other religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Shinto is the indigenous religion, whereas Buddhism is borrowed from Korea and China. There are differences in the various sects of Buddhism which have developed over time.