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| Shige (Kiwako Taichi) in Kuroneko. |
By John Esther
Set in medieval Japan, Kuroneko (Black Cat) opens up with a scene of blunt realism. A gang of samurai come upon a house in the countryside. Without hesitation they drink from the land's water before going straight through the front door and into two unsuspecting women.
For a prolonged amount of time, Yone (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter-in-law, Shige (Kiwako Taichi), are repeatedly raped before being burnt to death by the samurai.
When the smoke clears a black cat appears. A messenger from beyond.
After telling it like it is for a brief moment, director Kaneto Shindo (Naked Island) spins the harsh realism of the opening scene into a Gothic fantasy where women come back from the dead, take the forms of cat, ghost and women, plus any combination thereof, and wreak vengeance on the their killers.
Sworn to drink the blood of samurai, Shige wanders around Rajomon Gate waiting for a samurai escort to see her home. Yone waits at home with wine. As the two blood sisters lure one violent, drunk samurai after another into the cats' den of death, the whole town seems to know about the murdered samurai, including the powerful yet stupid, Raiko Minamoto (Kei Sato), who cannot figure out how to kill the new assassins in town.
Unfortunately for Yone and Shige, their grandiose plan runs into snag when Yone's son and Shige's husband, Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura), returns. Once a simple farm boy, Gintoki is now a mighty samurai whose latest assignment is to kill the demons haunting Rajomon Gate.
What is a bloodthirsty assassin/faithful wife and loving mother to do? Make even a more scary deal with the netherworld.
Originally released in 1968, Kuroneko is currently circulating various Landmark Theatres around the country in a new 35mm print. Occasionally showcasing some interesting visuals -- often with the women or white clothes floating in the air, because of the film's look and feel, it has developed a sort of cult status and will be greeted voraciously by those who like their films politically reactionary.
When women are raped, beaten and burned to death there are no opportunities whatsoever for them to come back and kill their killers. They decay away into history and it is only the living who can do something about injustice (although murder is final and cannot be undone). To entertain otherwise seems downright insulting to the victims of war who have been raped and killed.
Then there the linking of women to cats. This sexist stereotype may have been kitschy keen in the era of Kuroneko, but it now just comes off as silly, if not exacerbating.
Perhaps on a less serious note, this will not do anything for the reputation of the much-maligned black cat. Absurdly associated with bad luck, black cats are often the last cats adopted out of shelters because of superstitious cultural stereotypes. There are also the ones most likely to be abused.
Artistically justified for its look, plus its references to Japanese Folklore and Noh theater, Kuroneko wants to be a treatise on anti-war and women, but it blunts its attack by entertaining notions of fantastical visions of vengeance.
If I want to see a great story about a black cat taking down a violent drunk man for the sake of a murdered woman, I will pick up Edgar Allen Poe's The Black Cat. Pluto!
