Disc Reviews
Marebito | DVD Review
“This film might appeal for David Lynch fans or those viewers who aren’t allergic to experimental film-making techniques and want to see something different from a director, who is soon to have one of his own films remade for the fifth time later this year. However, don’t expect another Grudge here.”
Also known as A Stranger from Afar, Marebito marks the collaboration between famous manga writer Chiaka Konaka (who also wrote the original novel), newly-acclaimed master of horror Takashi Shimizu and cyberpunk icon Shinya Tsukamoto (best known for his underground cult hit Tetsuo). Made on just eight days during pre-production of the American remake of Shimizu’s own Ju-on film, The Grudge, Marebito is quite a departure from his Ju-on films series as it is more a movie about the meaning of fear instead of a straight scary-as-hell horror movie.
Masuoka (played by Shinya Tsukamoto) is an independent cameraman who has a profound obsession with the notion of fear. After he watches a grisly footage of a man committing suicide in the subway, Masuoka is desperate to understand the madman’s intentions as he returns to the scene for answers. He inadvertently finds himself into Tokyo’s subterranean underworld. Among the ghosts and creatures, he finds a strange and naked girl in which he brought above and keep inside his apartment. Has he discover that this inhuman-like creature beauty only feeds on blood, Masuoka starts to loose the reason as well as gaining the terrible knowledge he so craves.
The origin of the original Japanese title is a term relating to the fantastic ethnology. They are divine beings who came from another world to help people by gifts; they are appeared as noble, monk, old couples, or beggars. Having played similar role in his own twisted movies, it’s not a surprise to see Tsukamoto playing the obsessive-character of Masuoka and his performance manages to make the film bearable. Even though the director relies on pure horror elements (short appearances of Lovecraftian-creatures, vampirism) he uses them as metaphors like Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, an equally experimental but unsatisfying movie. Shimizu refuses to go for the scare even when he pursues fear at its core. Shot mostly in hand-held digital camera with lots of voice-over monologue from the central character, it is an eerie but excruciatingly slow-moving horror movie that feels rather empty and shallow.
The special features consists mostly on three separates and poorly-filmed interviews with the director, the main actor and the producer. Shimizu is not completely at ease in front of a camera but he manages to talk mostly about the origins of fear and how horror films and scary novels influences him. Tsukamoto is more comfortable and he mostly talks about how he was attracted to the project. He was willing to talk a lot more about the film but sadly the interviewers comes up short with questions. Finally, the producer and series manager Hiroshi Takahashi (also a pioneering scriptwriter in japanese movie industry for having, among others, adapted the original Ringu series) talks mainly about the origin of J-horror movies and the Bancho Horror series in which Marebito is part of that series.
This film might appeal for David Lynch fans or those viewers who aren’t allergic to experimental film-making techniques and want to see something different from a director, who is soon to have one of his own films remade for the fifth time later this year. However, don’t expect another Grudge here.
Movie rating – 2
Disc Rating – 3
