Onibaba (1964)

Kaneto Shindo's "Onibaba"

After being utterly floored by "The Naked Island," I was very excited to sit for Kaneto Shindo's 1964 film "Onibaba." It has quite a reputation, so I felt that it had the ability to surpass its former. However, aside from the style and visual prowess of Shindo's direction, I was less than enthused about its feeble attempts at symbolism. 

The film centers on an older woman and her daughter-in-law in the mid-14th century. As war rampages the country, the two women hide away in a marsh field stealing supplies and food from passing, lost soldiers. After one of their neighbors returns having news of their son/husband's death, he entices the widow to sleep with him. She does, making the mother-in-law very angry. The mother-in-law then uses a samurai demon mask to scare her daughter-in-law from continuing in the sexual engagement.

The best quality "Onibaba" has is its biblical aesthetic. It has the visual and stylistic quality of something either pre-historical or post-apocalyptic, making its story seem something innately savage or molecularly human. This quality really fosters the thematic attempts to identity something qualitative on the human condition. 

While these visual and tonal styles really sell the experience, I had a far more difficult time engaging with the thematic point it was trying to make. The more I try to dig away at the thematic point, the more it falls apart. There was confusion as to whether the mother-in-law was truly the antagonizing force or if the daughter-in-law was the couplable party. If I wanted to reach a consistent understand, my own explanation is that each character is acting on their base-level impulses, symbolically mirroring the terror that surrounds the land. However, this theme didn't feel concrete or solid in its assurances.

Overall, I did not dislike "Onibaba." It was a completely engaging piece, thankfully due to its tonal execution and its visual style. However, I felt disappointed at its wasted potential.