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SÉANCE
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of the most distinctive and prolific talents in the J-horror (Japanese horror) field. SÉANCE, a loose remake of the sixties classic SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, is not one of his better films, but it definitely has moments.
The Package
SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON, based on a novel by Mark McShane, was made,
effectively, in 1964 by British director Bryan Forbes. It concerned a psychic
woman (Kim Stanley) who concocts a scheme that involves kidnapping a child and
then pretending to locate the kid psychically in order to claim the ransom
money, but the woman begins receiving disturbing psychic vibes that throw her
plans into turmoil.
This heavily retooled 1999 remake, made for Japanese
television, was by the talented and idiosyncratic Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation
to Akira), best known for the brilliant CURE (1997) and the almost-brilliant
PULSE (2000). Other films by this unique talent include SWEET HOME (1989),
CHARISMA (1999) and BRIGHT FUTURE (2003), many of which feature the renowned
actor Koji Yakusho (as does SÉANCE), who the director has dubbed his
“alter-ego”.
The Story
Junko is a free-lance psychic and her husband Sato is a sound man. They
live a “normal” (read: uneventful) lifestyle, at least until Junko begins
picking up disturbed psychic vibes surrounding a kidnapping. It seems a little
girl has been snatched off a playground by a perv, but has managed to escape
into a forest where Sato happens to be recording sound. The girl hides in his
equipment box and he unknowingly takes her home with him. In the meantime Junko
has been contacted by the girl’s distraught parents, who want her to psychically
locate their daughter.
Back home, Sato opens his tool case and finds the girl. Rather than
contacting the police, Junko and Sato unwisely decide to place the girl in an
old house which Junko will pretend to use her extra-sensory powers to locate.
Unfortunately, Sato inadvertently kills the girl before the plan is carried out.
Now the two are really in a fix. They bury the girl and attempt to wash
their hands of the whole mess, but the girl’s unquiet spirit isn’t quite ready
to let go. Junko and Sato see the girl, or parts of her, everywhere they go.
One day Sato confronts a seeming flesh and blood replica of himself and sets it
on fire (a professor at the beginning of the film has already explained that
when a person sees one’s double it means he or she is about to die). The next
morning Junko finds a pacifier left by the girl and, unknown to herself, happens
to be clutching it when cops arrive to question the couple about their
involvement in the kidnapping, which does little to substantiate Junko Sato’s
claim that they have nothing to do with it!
The Direction
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of the most unique directorial talents on the scene
and this film is an intriguing showcase for his gifts. It’s one of the few
times Kurosawa has turned to an outside source for material (his best films tend
to be adapted from his own published novels)--with SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON he
was working from a deeply British storyline quite foreign his own
quintessentially Japanese worldview. Needless to add, Kurosawa made plenty of
changes to the story, such as making the psychic protagonist’s visions concrete
(whereas in the original film they were only described). He’s also, as is his
practice, added several layers of ambiguity by starting scenes in the middle
and/or end, unexpectedly jumping forward in time and leaving out many connecting
threads. As anyone who’s seen Kurosawa’s other films well knows, ambiguity is
his stock in trade: perhaps no other contemporary filmmaker utilizes it as
effectively.
But does Kurosawa’s approach work? Not quite. Certainly he’s concocted an
intriguing piece of work with a vivid (perhaps too vivid) atmosphere of
brooding, near-hallucinatory creepiness, but too much of it is derivative, at
least to those viewers like myself who are familiar with J-horror films, which
invariably feature ghostly visitations involving pasty women with long dark
hair. SÉANCE has more than its share of that very element, meaning it may work
for some viewers, but those who’ve seen
RINGU, JU-ON, DARK WATER, et al
are in for a mildly effective but underwhelming ride through an overly familiar
landscape.
Vital Statistics
SÉANCE (KOREI)
Mirovision
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Producers: Takehiko Tanaka, Yasuyuki Uemura
Screenplay: Tetsuya Onishi, Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cinematography: Takahide Shibanushi
Editing: Junichi Kikuchi
Cast: Koji Yakusho, Jun Fubuki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Kitarou, Ittoku Kishibe, Ren
Osugi, Sho Aikawa, Daikai Shimizu