A documentary about supernatural events: the best works of Ai Iijima and Maria Takaki

Ying (2005)

Director: Koshi Shiraishi

Writers: Naoyuki Morita

Starring: Marika Matsumoto / Ungirls / Hiroshi Aramata / 饭岛爱 / Takanori / Sarata...

Type: Horror

Official website: www.no-ro-i.jp

Country/Region of Production: Japan

Language: Japanese

Release: 2005-08-20

Runtime: 115 minutes

Also known as: Curse

IMDb link: tt0930083

P.S. When this film review was sent out in Douban, someone asked me in a private message, is this true?

Anyone who has seen "Blair the Witch" knows that it was actually a hoax, creating an atmosphere of horror in a documentary style. The film sold well that year, and the end result was that many people were deceived. The biggest difference between television and movies is that tv often tells some news, and movies clearly tell you that it is a story, but when the two are confused, perhaps as an audience can not distinguish between true and false, so "Blair the Witch" has achieved unprecedented success.

"Curse" was shot by the Japanese, and its style is very similar to "Blair the Witch", creating a realistic documentary style through the unobtrusive DV shooting method of swinging composition to achieve an attitude that the audience can be convinced of. But compared to "Blair the Witch", "Curse" is obviously better in storytelling, it can be said to directly bring the audience into the supernatural events, one after another horror and strange things are displayed in front of the audience, in a kind of atmosphere creation and eerie details of the narration, the Japanese can still lead the way, which is incomparable to the college students in "Blair the Witch".

At the beginning of the film, it first tells the life of the supernatural novel writer Kobayashi, just like the regular writer's profile, although it is not detailed enough, but the works in the lens and the photos of the characters with a slight sense of age bring the audience into a real world, as if it is a special column of characters on TV. But then something strange happened to Kobayashi. Writer Kobayashi's home was burned down, and Kobayashi's wife died, but Kobayashi disappeared and could not find the body at all, leaving only a disc of a collated video tape, which was made two days before the fire.

Here, in fact, no one will care whether there is an inevitable connection between this video tape and the fire in Kobayashi's home and Kobayashi's disappearance. But the documentary's approach tells the audience that if they want to unravel the events that happened to Kobayashi, they must watch this videotape, and this strength is very much in line with the production method of the exploration TV feature, that is, to give a result, and then the choreographer begins to tell the process of this exploration. The point that is very emphasized here is that the process given by the choreographer may not be a real process of exploration, but many people will follow the choreographer's thinking without thinking. The production methods such as "Into Science" in the central ten sets of the country are like this, the audience can only follow the thinking of the choreographer, and the premise of not being able to participate in the exploration can make such programs often do mysterious acts.

As a result, the writer Kobayashi's tape became the backbone of the story, and when the film began to tell the character of Kobayashi, all the shots were basically very stable and formal, but the shots in the tape recorded by Kobayashi began to shake and be out of specification. Since this tape is edited, Kobayashi also came into contact with many related video materials in the process of exploration, so when it comes to these contents, the image style immediately becomes normal. The existence of these related video materials undoubtedly increases the authenticity of Kobayashi's material records, thus greatly improving the credibility.

The film obviously follows the style of general television exploration in the production of images, so the film is basically shot in a television documentary method, the main purpose of which is to require the audience to follow in Kobayashi's footsteps and then accept all the information unconditionally. But in fact, although there is this kind of mirror image assistance, it may not be easy to really achieve the recognition of the audience, especially a horror film about ghosts and gods.

The most remarkable thing about Japanese horror films is the creation of atmosphere, and this kind of construction is mostly used in color, smoke, depth of field, bizarre pictures, and even sudden evil ghosts appear, etc., but this film is a documentary style, so these techniques are almost difficult to use, but also to show an absolutely realistic lens, but how can this absolute realistic image effect convince the audience? That is the most eloquent speech and talk of the Japanese. In many Japanese horror films, the horror spoken out of the mouth of the character is extremely important, it often gives the audience a sense of involvement, and this sense of involvement seems so close and real, thus creating a real psychological horror.

The director of this film obviously faces a major problem, that is, when the image style cannot create a unique special atmosphere, how to implement this sense of horror through the language of the characters in the play?

Writer Kobayashi discovered a bizarre clue due to the needs of his profession, the family found a strange phenomenon in the neighbor's house, often heard the sound of babies crying, and the mother and son of the neighbor's family almost never went out. This would have been a very ordinary event, and in the eyes of the audience, it may be autism and other issues. Of course, Kobayashi went to the interview with curiosity, and ended up touching a closed door, but the mother did look a little strange, the pigeons in the yard and the little boy hiding behind the curtains. But none of this was enough to have a terrifying effect, so a few days later, the mother and son moved away, and the family who provided kobayashi with clues died in a car accident. Here, everything is not connected, there is no necessary logic, but the combination cannot but feel strange, but the meaning of terror is still not revealed. Kobayashi just investigates the strange mother who moved away named Kurai.

Next is the appearance of a girl with super powers, the director obviously knows that with the shaking DV can not make the audience recognize the ability of the little girl, so he uses the power of the TV station to show the girl's super power in a TV program, so the audience's sense of trust is involuntarily enhanced. But the little girl named Yano became ill after showing her superpowers.

The third appearance is a very sensitive actress Mariko, also doing a spy show, but it seems that the existence of ghosts is discovered, of course, the show has also been stopped. However, in the video materials of the program, there is an inexplicable black shadow. This is the only shot in the entire film that seems to be called a ghost, and it is through the video material in the film's Kobayashi videotape, and the triple mirror ghost shot is obviously to show the audience's real experience. In reality, the ghost stories we hear are often paraphrases of the narrator. This sense of distance will not only not make the audience feel distant, but also give people a real feeling of reality. When the film downplays the ghost shot, it uses a real empiricism to strengthen the existence of ghosts and gods, which is more in line with the documentary style of the film.

The fourth important character is a psychic medium, who appears in the process of Kobayashi's interview with Mariko, and appears comically, but he clashes with Mariko, like a farce. No one would believe this nervous medium, not even Kobayashi.

There are four characters in Kobayashi's videotape, and the appearances of these four characters are all different, and there is not even a commonality in the same supernatural event, or Kobayashi cannot put these four characters on the same thing for the time being. And we look at the date of the video tape in the film, the appearance of these four characters is also far apart, it can be imagined that Kobayashi's record is completely aimless and aimless, just curious to go to the interview, only to play a role in accumulating materials. This kind of record is extremely consistent with a writer's life experience, and even says that it has nothing to do with the curse at this time.

But then, the four characters began to connect with each other. First, Yano's disappearance leads to the psychic, and then Kobayashi follows the clues provided by the psychic to a village that has been sunk into the water, learning about the ghost sacrifice rituals that have been held in this village before. During this period, strange events occurred on Mariko's body, but the director was very calm, and he still let Mariko have no connection with this matter, but left the audience with a riddle of wool. Therefore, at this time, Ma Lizi still did not enter the curse event. But the discovery in the small village surprised Kobayashi, and all the characters were immediately unified.

Kobayashi discovers not only the strange mother but also the wool threads seen in many of the villages, and the story finally brings together the four main characters through Kobayashi's pursuit to an event, namely the curse of the ghosts in this ancient village.

This kind of storytelling method is very much in line with the cognitive process of the real characters, if you know that fish is a dish, know that tofu is a dish, until later inadvertently discovered that fish and tofu can form a dish. This is absolutely different from the general film telling method, but it is not difficult to find that although the four independent characters were connected very late, the main line of the story is still controlled by the writer Kobayashi, who has strung up the story in his personal capacity. His interviews and his interests were only a big goal, but one that included a curse.

At this time, we look at the time prompt in the videotape, as the story progresses, we immediately see that the interval between each video is also shortening, which not only shows that Kobayashi has found the internal connection of the event, but also more consciously explores this particular event, and it is precisely because of the conscious action that the next story appears to be much more concentrated.

When Kobayashi thinks the incident is finally over, he edits all the footage into this tape, which is obviously a documentary creation method, that is, looking for considerable content under the proposition of "curse". Documentaries in general also often record footage aimlessly, and then piece together certain clips that are useful for expressing the same subject. This is the director's second creation, and this kind of creation is obviously directed, that is, the documentary film is not the most real record, but the director's thinking concept is integrated into it. Creation has really been elevated.

Of course, the film is not over, and the misfortune of Kobayashi's family and the disappearance of Kobayashi himself show that the truth of the facts of the incident may never be solved, and for many secret topics, this result is perfectly normal. In many cases it is impossible to find a true answer, and the story often has a reasonable explanation. The director of the film once again uses realistic standards to give the final ending of the film, and the ending that is not explained is the ending of the film, the best and most reasonable ending of this documentary film, or even the most convincing to the audience.

The film is obviously much smarter than "Blair the Witch", seemingly complicated and trivial details are actually carefully arranged by the director, all the ordinary mirrors and each plot development point are in line with the audience's perception of the documentary, so it will inevitably drive the audience and cause a resonance. This is not only a film packaged in a documentary style, but also a film made almost entirely according to the documentary method, and the director knows that the root of all this is a kind of people's perception of the experience and the documentary mentality in television, and all he has to do is to make the supernatural events as real as if they were happening around you.

By the way, every actor in the film is real and believable, which is also a guarantee of the success of this film!