Kairo (DVD Review) weaves a web of discomfort. Not content to merely frighten, or repulse, the film achieves a dread that carries through the entirety of the film. It’s quite possibly the most existential of all horror films. In truth, I’d hesitate to even call it one. Not because it isn’t frightening (it is), or because of its subject matter (Internet ghosts), but because the film gradually eschews all matter of plot mechanics and boundaries. By the end, it has become a film of magnified power, an existential challenge that leaves the viewer drained.
I admire horror films that try to stretch the boundaries of the genre, and filmmakers that refuse to settle for replaying what’s worked before. The problem with commercial horror isn’t that the producers don’t want to entertain the viewers – they do. But rather than study the process of successful creators, they copy the tropes. So we have a hundred movies that look similar, but only a few that feel honest and passionate. Kairo is honest, and passionate, and, focus groups be damned, it’s actually about something.
What is it about, precisely? Well, on the surface, it’s about how the afterlife has become so full that it begins to exude into our world. At first, it begins with ghosts, but then it progresses to the point where the entire world seems to be in its final death throes. There are epic shots of boats on empty seas and planes falling to inconsequential doom. The entire palette of the film gradually resembles the tint of old photographs.
Within this story, we connect to three key people: Ryosuke Kawashima (Haruhiko Kato), a computer-phobe whose Internet connects on its own to a horror website. Harue Karasawa (Koyuki), the lab assistant who finds herself drawn to the mystery surrounding them. Michi (Kuriko Aso), a gardener who notices that there seem to be less people around her than usual.
Around them, odd things recur. Shadows of dead people remain burned into their surroundings. People cover up spots of possession with red carpenter’s tape. Inexplicable diseases come from moments of terror. And ghosts slowly become more visible, moving with gliding, hypnotizing slowness. Kiyoshi Kurosawa keeps these details deliberately paced, so that they stay intriguing without ever crossing into maddening.
I’ve grown increasingly bored with most horror films lately. Not because I dislike the genre. Rather, I worry that too few of them actually try to say anything. To communicate. Most are content to shock, repulse, and run away before we realize how inconsequential and empty it all was. For that reason, I find myself drawn to horrors like Dawn of the Dead, Cube, and Cemetery Man. Because, in addition to working as fine entertainment, they also engage on an intellectual level. Must all horror movies ask us to turn off our brains?
This is not to say that Kairo is like an SAT. The film itself is a pleasure, a wonderful mixture of set-pieces and dread. When the ghosts arrive, they are successfully frightening. Black mists who solidify just long enough to remind us of their human origins. They move with an eerie languid pace. It makes sense – the world is ending, so why waste energy? The world suggested by the film is a barren one, filmed with a sly camera that recalls John Carpenter’s best work. Long, drawn out shots are punctuated by quick pans that suggest the isolation of the people.
Against that, the characters emerge as distinctive individuals. Kawashima is perhaps the most likable, because he doesn’t have a clue about computers. His ignorance allows him to take a lot of exposition while still remaining a genuine person in his own right. Michi stays familiar mostly for her sunny disposition, although that doesn’t last too long within the course of the film. She witnesses some truly disturbing omens (including a shocking suicide) which shatter her sense of reality, if not her strength. And Harue plays to the film’s heart, revealing herself as a person terrified of losing those around her. What is hell, if not eternal loneliness?
The film’s progression and resolution may not please everyone. How can you resolve a plot based on the premise that the afterlife is pouring into our world, and nothing can be done? Kairo doesn’t provide all the answers to its situation, but no matter. Kiyoshi Kurosawa knows what he’s doing, and he does it with grace and elegance. Kairo is not terrifying, but it does create a fully new idea, and execute it with complete success. Like the very best of horror, Kairo works the gut, the heart, and, in what is a small miracle, the brain.
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