Directed by Kaneto Shindo
Written by Kaneto Shindo
1964/Japan
Kindai Eiga Kyokai/Toho Eiga Co Ltd.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Woman: I’m not a demon! I’m a human being!
Beauty and horror meet in this savage film.
In 14th Century Japan, the mother and wife of a missing conscriptee eke out a meager living by killing vulnerable samurai, selling their belongings, and then dumping the bodies into a deep pit. The murders are assisted by the head-high grasses that surround their hut.
Into this milieu arrives Hachi, a neighbor who accompanied the missing man into battle. He assures the women that their loved one is dead. Mom can’t forgive Hachi but he easily seduces the daughter into secret nightly lovemaking sessions. When Mom finds out she does everything in her power to prevent the meetings.
She is unsuccessful until alone one night she comes across a samurai wearing a ghastly demon mask. He informs her that the mask is to conceal his face, the most handsome in all Japan. The meeting cuts the samurai’s life expectancy short and gives Mom another idea for splitting up the lovers.
This movie is gruesome in the extreme. The killings, including one of a dog, are brutal. Yet at the same time the supernatural elements have a stark grandeur and Shindo’s vision of the natural world is lyrical. Highly recommended.
Amend para 2
selling their belongings ** and then** dumping the bodies into a deep pit
Amend para 3
This allows them to survive while the younger woman’s husband, who is also the older woman’s son, is away fighting in the wars. Into this milieu arrives Hachi, a neighbor who accompanied the absent man* into battle. He assures the women that that their loved one is dead. etc
*Think Kishi was a footsoldier not a “samurai”…like knights in the Middle Ages, simplistically, you needed to be an aristocrat (either current or have an ancestor as such) or attain a battlefield elevation.
Excellent edits Mr. Proofreader
Of course, I’m a professional. LOL.
Thanks for the review.
This movie is SO GREAT!
I’ve been meaning to see it for decades because of my long-time fascination with Japanese cinema. But seeing it on the List reminded me about it and I finally saw it a few years ago.
A few months before I saw Onibaba, I was watching Kurosawa’s The Lower Depths and there’s a scene where one of the characters (I think it’s Mifune) is arguing with the awful landlady and when she walks away, he mutters “Onibaba” under his breath. The subtitles translated it as “demon witch.”
You are so right. I liked this even better on the second viewing.
There is a rawness here that is unexpected. It forces you to look and relate to uncomfortable issues and that makes it compelling. I liked this movie a lot and immediately move Onibaba into top five, manybe top three of 1964.
Onibaba was on my Favorites list for sure. The other one in there I wish you would see sometime is Kwaidan. It’s a Japanese ghost story but very different.