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Mathew Scott

Kuroneko 
Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kiwako Taichi
Director:  Kaneto Shindo
 
Kaneto Shindo would probably delight in knowing that even now, almost two years after his death at age 100, the stories still swirl around his life and career.
Here was a filmmaker who was immersed in every aspect of the creative process and, after being involved in about 50 films as director, producer and scriptwriter, left behind movies that once seen were never forgotten: he was, in short, a master storyteller. And his fans are still trying to determine what about his life is fact and what is fiction.
It is said his family lost its fortune and he grew up impoverished, that his mother virtually worked herself to death, and that when he made it into the film industry, he learnt how to write scripts by stealing older ones which the studio had been using as toilet paper.
But Shindo more often than not kept things close to his chest, preferring to let his films reflect how he saw the nature of the world around him. And a lot of times the pictures he painted weren't pretty.
For most, the lasting images the director provided came from his acclaimed Onibaba (1964), with its harrowing tale of two women who preyed on samurai. But Kuroneko  took the themes, the sheer silent terror, of that film and turned everything up a notch.
The Japanese title roughly translates as A Black Cat in a Bamboo Grove, and it is deep within that forest that Shindo works his dark magic. Not for the first or last time in his career would the director create a world within a world, a place where the men in control of society are lured, stumble and eventually fall in the face of forces beyond their control.
Kuroneko begins with destruction as samurais stumble on a house and take everything they want, including the lives of the two women who live there. From the ruins, though, something emerges. It's as though mother nature herself appears - in the guise of a black cat - and calls on all her powers to ensure that revenge, when it does come, will descend with pure savagery.
From here the spell is cast as the women return, shot by long-tern Shindo collaborator Kiyomi Kuroda in stunning black and white, the medium helping to blur the lines between the "real" and spirit worlds with a minimum of fuss or any real special effects. Through the forest, and into their world, the spirits lure their prey. In the face of what they promise, all men are powerless.
We slowly realise the revenge is being wrought not on any single man, but on mankind itself for its many sins. No one is safe from this fury, not least the man these women once held close to their hearts, and when Shindo closes out the rising madness, he leaves his audience with an ending that lingers long after the final frame.
Mathew Scott


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Film appreciation: Kuroneko, revenge tale directed by master storyteller Kaneto Shindo, blurs the line between the real and spirit worlds

Kuroneko (1968)

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Japanese filmmaker created movies that, once seen, were never forgotten. For sheer, silent terror "Kuroneko" is hard to beat.


Japanese filmmaker created movies that, once seen, were never forgotten. For sheer, silent terror "Kuroneko" is hard to beat


Film appreciation: Kuroneko, revenge tale directed by master storyteller Kaneto Shindo, blurs the line between the real and spirit worlds

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Japanese filmmaker created movies that, once seen, were never forgotten. For sheer, silent terror "Kuroneko" is hard to beat.

Japanese filmmaker created movies that, once seen, were never forgotten. For sheer, silent terror "Kuroneko" is hard to beat.