Introduction to Ghost Girl

Introduction to Ghost Girl | Appreciation | Reflection

1964 black-and-white film 98 minutes.

Japan Modern Film Association/Toyo Film Corporation

Director: Jinteng prodigy Photography: Ito Kuroda's main actors: Noguchi Shinko (as a middle-aged woman), Jitsuko Yoshimura (as a young woman) and Sato Kei (as Aba).

abstract

Hundreds of years ago, on a vast reed wasteland, there was a very humble hut. A middle-aged woman in her forties and a young woman in her twenties lived in the hut. They are mother-in-law. It was an era of years of war. The son of a middle-aged woman went to serve as a soldier, accompanied by a man named Aba. Because of the war, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law hid in the reeds after their son left. In order to make a living, they started a similar business activity here, specifically looking for people who left behind or fled into the reeds. Once discovered, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law stabbed them to death with spears, then stripped the soldiers of their helmets, armor and clothes, and exchanged food and some necessities with a bandit leader named A Niu, while the soldiers' bodies were killed.

One day, the man named Ah Ba suddenly ran back. He told the middle-aged woman that he and her son were captured by each other in a battle shortly after they became soldiers, and they had to become soldiers in the other army again. Later, the army also lost the battle and the two fled together. On the way, they met a group of refugees. When they saw that there were only two of them, they rushed up. They both fled desperately, but the son of a middle-aged woman was caught up by this group and killed.

After that, Aba built a hut in the reeds on the other side of the river not far from their hut. Ah Ba is an energetic person. He teases and seduces young women almost every time he meets her. Young women seem to be interested in Ah Ba, but middle-aged women have been staring at them with fierce eyes and have warned young women many times: Ah Ba is up to no good, he is chasing you, so be careful.

One day, a young woman came to the river to fetch water. Ah Ba waved to her among the reeds not far away. Before the young woman could talk to him, a middle-aged woman came up with a bucket. The young woman didn't say anything, and went back silently. At this time, Ah Ba was waiting for her on the road again. He whispered to her, Come and play with me. I will wait for you tonight. Say that finish twist a head into the reeds. That night, the young woman tossed and turned and could not sleep. She stole a glance at her mother-in-law lying side by side with her. She snored and seemed to sleep soundly. So the young woman crept up, dodged out of the door, ran out of the cage like a bird and ran to Ah Ba's residence.

Middle-aged women are not actually asleep. She saw every move of her daughter-in-law. After the daughter-in-law went out, she quickly got dressed and quietly followed her. The young woman ran to Aba's shack and made out unscrupulously as soon as they met. At this time, middle-aged women are staring at them from the cracks in the shack. At dawn, the young woman returned to her hut and found her mother-in-law still sleeping, so she gently lay down beside her mother-in-law.

The middle-aged woman decided to take action. She told the young woman how bad Ah Ba was, and the implication was that * * * was the biggest sin, and she was going to stab the knife in the underworld after her death. But the young woman was silent after hearing this. When the middle-aged woman saw that her daughter-in-law wouldn't listen, she went to Ah Ba again and said directly to him, "You sleep with me." Ah Ba couldn't help laughing: "Ha ha ha, who wants to sleep with an old woman like you?" The middle-aged woman has to express her true feelings. She begged Ah Ba not to find a wife. If the daughter-in-law leaves her and stays with Ah Ba, she can't continue to kill alone, which will ruin her life. Ah Ba didn't listen to her and said confidently, "Since we are lovers, of course we should be together." The middle-aged woman said, "She is my wife." Ah Ba shook his head and said, "Your son is dead and she is still young. There is nothing strange about her being a lover with me. "

In the middle of the night, the young woman slipped out of the house again, and the middle-aged woman got dressed and was ready to go out. Suddenly, the door opened and there stood a tall man wearing a mask of evil spirits. The middle-aged woman exclaimed, and the man reached out to comfort her, saying that he was the leader of the army, not a ghost. All his soldiers are dead, and he intends to return to Kyoto, but he doesn't know how to get out of this stinking place, hoping that middle-aged women will take him out. Middle-aged women have no choice but to show him the way. In the dark, a middle-aged woman walked in front and asked the police officer why he was wearing a mask. The officer said that he had a very beautiful face, but he didn't want to be seen, so he put on a mask and lived. Middle-aged women demanded to see his true face. The man sneered: how can you, a small ordinary person, deserve to see my true face? Let's go! The middle-aged woman said nothing and walked on. When she came to the deep hole where the body was dumped, she jumped silently, but the officer behind her fell into the deep hole because she couldn't see it in the dark. The middle-aged woman turned around and shouted at the cave, "What a suck!" Ran home and took a long rope to the bottom of the hole. She found the officer among a pile of scattered bones at the bottom of the cave. She went to unmask first. I didn't expect the mask to stick to my face tightly, and it took a lot of effort to uncover it. I saw that my face was covered with pustules and ugly, which frightened middle-aged women. As usual, the middle-aged woman took off his armor and took it home, and of course, there was a mask.

The daughter-in-law came back before dawn, and the middle-aged woman pretended to sleep with her eyes closed. During the day, they went to look for stragglers as usual. With the help of ABA, they killed two soldiers. When I went to bed at night, the middle-aged woman said that she would go to A Niu and let her daughter-in-law sleep alone. Then she went out with some armor on her back.

It's a godsend Young women and middle-aged women walked for a long time, and they couldn't wait to leave the hut and ran lightly to Ah Ba's residence. Suddenly, a ghost monster appeared in the dark reeds and stood in front of the young woman with open arms. The young woman screamed in horror and fled home. Early in the morning, when the middle-aged woman came back, she saw her daughter-in-law look uneasy and asked her what happened. The daughter-in-law only said "nothing". The next night, the young woman sneaked out again, but I didn't expect to meet the monster in the reeds. The young woman was afraid and had to run away from home again. On the third night, more thunder and less rain. The middle-aged woman said that A Niu still owed her some food, and she wanted it, so she went out. The young woman hasn't seen Ah Ba for two days, so she couldn't hold back any longer and ran out of the house in the heavy rain. On the way, the monster appeared in front. In order to see Ah Ba, the young woman summoned up her courage and rushed over, but the monster embraced her with open arms and pounced on her neck. At this time, the shouts of Ah Ba came from a distance. Young women are also desperately calling Aba's name. Ah Ba came soon and met a young woman running home. The woman said to him in horror, "There is a ghost! There are ghosts! " But Ah Ba doesn't believe in ghosts and gods. He held the woman tightly in his arms and said, "There is no ghost, there is no such thing at all." After listening to Dad's words, the young woman calmed down, and the two men hugged each other tightly in the reeds ... This scene was being seen by ghosts standing not far away, but the ghosts showed a helpless look.

After dawn, the young woman went home. After entering the door, she saw a man crouching in the corner. Seeing that it seemed to be her mother-in-law, she let out a cry. After a while, the man slowly turned around and the young woman screamed in surprise. It turned out to be the monster who stopped her many times. The young woman was about to run away when the monster suddenly said, "It's me, it's me." So this is a middle-aged woman. The young woman suddenly understood everything. The middle-aged woman cried and begged her daughter-in-law to forgive her, and said that this mask could not be taken off after coming back today. She begged her daughter-in-law to help her take off her mask. As soon as the young lady heard this, she put forward the suggestion at once. She proposed to leave her and Ah Ba alone in the future, and she could go to Ah Ba at any time, day and night. The middle-aged woman readily promised, so the young woman took off her mask. Unexpectedly, the mask is tightly attached to her face like a root. No matter how hard she tries, she can't take it off, and when she tries hard, middle-aged women are called pain. The young woman grabbed a mallet and beat it on the mask, and the middle-aged woman howled, and finally broke the mask and took it off, but the middle-aged woman's face has become bloody, ugly and cruel, more terrible than the mask of evil spirits. The young woman was really frightened at this time and escaped from the door with a loud cry. The middle-aged woman shouted, "Wait, wait for me! I am not a ghost, I am a person! " While chasing out. The two men ran in tandem to the front of the deep hole, and the young woman jumped over, while the middle-aged woman forgot its existence at this time, stepped on the air and fell into the deep hole.

Distinguish and appreciate

The screenwriter and director of this film, Jin Teng prodigy, is a famous Japanese playwright and director after World War II. In his early days, he was mainly engaged in the creation of screenplays. In the 1950s, he wrote excellent screenplays such as An Cheng's Ball, Temptation and Angel's Face. The Island of Extreme Poverty, which was shot at 1960, is the most representative work directed by Caneto prodigy. The film shows the daily life of farmers on a barren island in the form of a documentary, and the whole film does not use a dialogue. The film not only won high praise in Japan, but also won a grand prize at the Moscow International Film Festival.

Ghost Woman is a work written and directed by Caneto prodigy in 1964. Shinto Yoshitaka once wrote an article about how he came up with the idea of making this film: in his childhood, his mother always told him stories before going to bed every day, mainly Japanese folk stories. Among them, stories such as Ghost Woman and Mask of Rooting left a deep impression on him. After working in film, he became interested in the philosophy contained in these folk stories. In addition, because his mother is particularly good at describing stories, the images of endless wasteland, undulating reeds, lonely straw houses and long-haired old women in the stories are deeply imprinted in his mind. After a long period of conception, he mixed and refined the contents of several folk stories to create this work full of metaphors and symbols.

The first picture of the film is a dark cave that the photographer has been aiming at for a long time, and there is a subtitle: "Cave. It looks like an eye, watching everything that has happened here since ancient times. " This cave running through the film not only symbolizes the eyes of history, but also symbolizes traps, death and hell.

The film has no specific background of the times, and the two main female characters are anonymous. In Ghost Girl, the abstract time and specific name are not important, but it shows some common characteristics of human beings, first of all, human food instinct and sexual instinct and their extension.

In order to avoid the war, the mother-in-law hid in the endless reeds and stayed away from society. In order to survive, they must kill and steal together. This is difficult and dangerous for two women, but they can't live without it. Driven by life-sustaining food instinct, human beings dare to take any risks. When the survival is basically guaranteed, another instinct of human beings-sexual instinct begins to occupy the main position. In the film, after the young woman and Ah Ba became lovers, every time they flew to Ah Ba's residence in the dark, they all looked so cheerful and energetic, and their faces were full of longing and expectation. At this time, you can always hear the chirping of male pigeons outside the painting, which symbolizes the attraction of the opposite sex. This attraction is strong enough to break through the shackles of family, culture and ethics. In order to prevent her daughter-in-law from getting along with Ah Ba, her mother-in-law has preached to her daughter-in-law many times, but to no avail. Since then, she has teased her daughter-in-law three times and threatened her daughter-in-law. The different reactions of young women after three encounters with ghosts vividly show the power of sexual attraction. When she first saw the monster, she was scared out of her mind. After fleeing back to the hut, she huddled in the corner of the bed, trembling all over. The second time, although she also fled home, she still sat there thinking about countermeasures. The third time, she got up the courage to rush to the "evil ghost". Mother-in-law does not hesitate to pretend to be a ghost to prevent her daughter-in-law from seeing Ah Ba, which is an extension of her food instinct. She is an old woman. Without the help of her daughter-in-law, it is difficult for her to deal with soldiers with weapons in her hand alone. Without soldiers' armor, she can't get food to sustain her life. When pretending to be a ghost for the third time, the daughter-in-law shouted to Ah Ba and said, "There is a ghost! There are ghosts! " But Ah Ba doesn't care: "There is no ghost, there is no such thing in the world!" " They are almost making out in front of middle-aged women. At this time, middle-aged women who are incarnations of the devil can only helplessly look at them. In front of people who don't believe in ghosts and gods (idols), ghosts and gods are also pale and powerless. This play expresses the author's thinking and understanding of cultural traditions and ethics at a deeper level.

The military leader who always wears a mask in the film is also a symbolic image. According to himself, he is the most famous handsome guy in Kyoto, but in order not to let others see his face and to appear powerful, he wears a mask to live. However, when the middle-aged woman took off his mask, she showed an ugly face. The author uses this to show that people with high status are often hypocritical. Maybe they used to be a kind and open-minded gentleman, but once they put on a mask, the mask symbolizing hypocrisy will never be taken off. They can only hide behind the mask, become its accessories, confuse and intimidate the world with the mask, and eventually they will become uglier than evil spirits.

The sharp shooting of reeds in Ghost Girl left a deep impression on people. Reed is not only a kind of scenery and props in this film, it is endowed with life, perception and emotion, and even plays the role of "role" on some occasions. When it is relatively calm, the reed mainly keeps its natural form, and it seems quiet and distant, but with the change of the plot, it will show different dynamics: when the young woman runs to Aba's residence in the middle of the night, the reed leaves swing quickly and forcefully in the wind, and the moonlight reflected on the leaves increases its jumping feeling and vitality, which sets off the excitement and excitement of the young woman. On the way to the cave, middle-aged women with officers are basically in the dark, and most of the time they are very calm. However, when approaching the cave, with the sound of the wind blowing reed leaves, large clumps of reeds suddenly swooped down on the head of the characters like waves, and the light at the tip of the leaves flowed rapidly along the leaves, and the reeds leaned forward and turned back to the side, which suddenly made people feel nervous. The night my mother-in-law pretended to be a ghost for the third time, there was lightning and thunder, and the wind was very strong. The film uses several shots that occupy the whole picture to show that a bunch of long reed leaves are pulled in the same direction by strong winds, making a terrible sound in the strong lightning, as if they had become a monster with some destructive power. In addition, there are two or three times in the film, and a cluster of slender reed leaves in a calm state appears in the whole picture, which suddenly stretches like dozens of snakes and swings rapidly and irregularly, making people immediately feel anxious and uneasy out of balance, a mysterious and ominous premonition. The ghost woman's photography has injected magical power into the unconscious reed, making it a creature with independent perception and emotional dynamics in the film, which makes the picture fascinating. This anthropomorphic treatment of Reid is a fruitful and successful attempt in film aesthetics, which has an exemplary role for some films that appear later.

Shinko Yinchuan, who plays a middle-aged woman in Ghost, is one of the most famous actresses in Japan after the war, and is also the wife of the film's screenwriter and director Jin Teng prodigy. After graduating from primary school, she passed the entrance examination for the Tibetan women's troupe and soon began to perform on stage. 1950 After entering Daying Company, she mainly played the role of naive girl. In 1953, she played a poor female artist in Caneto prodigy's business card Miniature. Her natural, simple and lively performance made her break away from the stereotype of a teenage star and become a real actress. Over the past 40 years, otowa nobuko has created different types of female images with different personalities in more than 50 films/kloc-0, and is one of the most powerful actresses in Japanese cinema.

Jitsuko Yoshimura, who plays a young woman, has been acting in movies since high school. In Ghost Girl, she successfully played a young woman, showing the character and mentality of this savage who dares to love and hate. For this reason, she won the Blue Ribbon Award and Best Supporting Actress Award in 1964.