Slideshow
ONIBABA
鬼婆
Japan, 1964
Directed by Kaneto Shindo
Starring Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satō
Music by Hikaru Hayashi
Approx. 102 min. 35mm.
Deep within the wind-swept marshes of war-torn medieval Japan, an impoverished mother and her daughter-in-law eke out a lonely, desperate existence. Forced to murder lost samurai and sell their belongings for grain, they dump the corpses down a deep, dark hole and live off of their meager spoils. When a bedraggled neighbor returns from the skirmishes, lust, jealousy, and rage threaten to destroy the trio’s tenuous existence, before an ominous, ill-gotten demon mask seals the trio’s horrifying fate. Driven by primal emotions, dark eroticism, a frenzied score by Hikaru Hayashi, and stunning images both lyrical and macabre, Kaneto Shindo’s chilling folktale ONIBABA is a singular cinematic experience.
Reviews
“A chilling movie, a waking nightmare shot in icy monochrome, and filmed in a colossal and eerily beautiful wilderness.”
– Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian