Tuesday 24 July 2007

Kwaidan - The Beauty


I'm a sucker for strong visuals in film. Colour compositions, artistic interpretations of reality, contrasts, etc. Previous posts on Tears Of The Black Tiger, Ocean's Twelve and Pistol Opera bear this out.

Monday night I got a chance to see Masaki Kobayashi's terrific Kwaidan on the big screen at our local Cinematheque. Its 4 ghost stories are filled with the kind of imagery I love - in particular, the second story in the film called "The Woman In The Snow" - and helped it garner a Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. I would not be surprised at all if the director of Tears Of The Black Tiger was influenced directly by the film for some of his shots and painted backgrounds.

I may discuss the actual ghost elements of the film in another post, but for now I'll just let the beauty of these screencaps (all taken from the 35 minute long second story - "The Woman In The Snow") take over:


















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