The Sign of Life was a Sign of Death

It's often said hauntings are the result of ghosts having issues left unresolved from their mortal lives. 2001's Pulse (回路) posits the opposite may also be true, that ghosts are a reflection or symbol of issues left unconfronted by those still living. This film by the other Kurosawa, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, comes from that wonderful post-Evangelion period in Japanese media when artists were exploring daringly insightful psychological analyses in their works.

We meet a young woman, Michi (Aso Kumiko), who works at a rooftop greenhouse in Tokyo. She visits a coworker, Toguchi, at home, speaks to him briefly, and then is startled to discover his corpse hanging from a noose, apparently having been dead for some time.

In another part of town, a college student named Ryosuke (Kato Harukiko) is setting up his first computer with an internet connexion (it was 2001, remember). He's confused to find the site continually loads up footage of unknown individuals walking listlessly around their apartments. Freaked out, Ryosuke visits the college computer lab where he finds a beautiful young student called Harue (Koyuki) is surprisingly helpful and interested in him. As the movie progresses, the characters find themselves compulsively discussing loneliness and the possible futility of attempting to achieve meaningful connexions. It's a little startling how quickly Michi and her coworkers are willing to brush past Toguchi's suicide and carry on work as usual, gossiping as they arrange plants. When Harue asks Ryosuke if he got set up for the internet because he wanted to connect with people, he finds himself baffled and unable to explain his own motivation beyond some vague comment about how everyone else was doing it.

The film's intent on social commentary becomes clearer as the scope of the hauntings broadens to include the entire Kanto region. As ghosts become a more prevalent part of everyone's lives, the living exhibit stranger behaviour. Ryosuke and Michi finally meet when he stumbles upon her car sitting idle in the middle of the street while she sleeps with her head rested against the wheel.

The atmosphere is pretty effective and the ghosts are nice and creepy. Pulse is available on The Criterion Channel this month as part of a playlist of Japanese horror movies.

X Sonnet #1885

Returning tubes were jammed with people bread.
We toast the night when yeast discovered wheat.
A rising loaf could float attendant dead.
Descriptions labelled ham a deadly meat.
A circle night began with burning guns.
Throughout the night, the riders only thought.
Across the street, a phantom quickly runs.
With gentle hands, the moth was never caught.
Impressions burnt to walls could move the eye.
Important boats were leaving home behind.
Decisions cut the mollusc monster pie.
Of dreams the normal ghost doth us remind.
Repeated tides have left the clothing pale.
A soup of ghosts has fed the lonely whale.