Pure Hell

Where do people with guilt complexes go when they die? They might go to the place depicted in 1960's Jigoku (地獄, "Hell"), a horror film about a young man who constantly finds himself in situations where people die and constantly blames himself for it. The movie is devilish, a long cruel joke that wisely never explains itself. It's effective in its sense of inescapability and as an evisceration of sentimentality.

Shirou (Shigeru Amachi) is a theology student in love with his professor's daughter, Yukiko (Utako Mitsuya).

Watching the movie, I thought his name was the "Shiro" that meant white, 白, but it's actually "Shirou" using the kanji "四郎", a fairly common name, the first kanji meaning the number four and the second referring to a young man. But I don't think the resemblance to "white" is incidental because despite the fact that the film shows him apparently on a fixed path to Hell, he never seems to have an even slightly malicious thought and is never actually responsible for any deaths around him. The first one, a drunken yakuza, is hit by Shirou's car when it's being driven by his mysterious friend, Tamura (Yoichi Numata), a young man with a cruel sense of humour who was also courting Yukiko. The professor refused to give his consent but Tamura applies pressure by demonstrating knowledge he somehow has of a murder the professor committed during the war.

One might read Tamura as being the dark half of a single person for whom Shirou is the other half or one might read Tamura as a demon. When Shirou goes to visit a nursing home where his parents live, ironically called Tenjoen, "Garden of Heaven", Tamura shows up to reveal he knows about forms of murder everyone there has committed.

Somehow in the nursing home is also a prostitute, a reporter, and an artist who's been working on a painting of Hell for a long time. The artist's daughter is Sachiko, who looks uncannily like Yukiko (and is also played by Utako Mitsuya). Also like Yukiko, Sachiko seems to be the only one who's never done anything bad. The fact that they are inexplicably identical adds an otherworldly quality to their purity as though they represent an ideal more than actual people.

As the deaths pile up they become more absurd and the imagery becomes increasingly surreal and fantastic, people are cut up alive and Shirou's unborn daughter is sent down some ghostly river on a lotus leaf. Every is in constant anxiety about the fates of their loved ones causing me to wonder, as people start coming back from the dead and the cycle of threat continues endlessly, why the characters don't grow numb to the trauma. It occurred to me it was because these were people from melodrama. Shirou's overwhelming sense of guilt and panic will never be assuaged because he was simply never meant to be more complex than that. As much as they're caught in circumstances and places of torment, the characters are also frozen within particular feelings, forever. This is the Hell of the sentimental.

Twitter Sonnet #718

Razor Slinkies massacre the stairway.
Distant nine a.m. paints the mouse yellow.
The army crushed a cracking gold Segway.
Beetles converge on the shrunken pillow.
Armour moleskin salami microphones.
Dress the divested vesture in a tank.
Bring forth the forthright coats of herringbones.
Don ye derbies of buoyant hue and rank.
Don't eat the cookie when cowries go unsought.
Rejoice in Germany's manticores now.
Revel in beige envelopes without blot.
If they ask whence Webster's arrived tell how.
Behold, the Lord hath spilt ice cream on Earth.
Mark ye to ants the sugar liquid's worth.

Compassed by Spirits

To be effective, horror films often create a feeling of inescapable doom, of retribution brought down on the protagonist based on half-hidden, inflexible rules. 1964's Kwaidan (怪談) exemplifies this aesthetically and thematically. An anthology film consisting of four stories, each based on a Japanese folk tale, it's an eloquent portrayal of the tight logic of supernatural--or human subconscious--forces.

You might recognise these Heike crabs if you've seen Carl Sagan's Cosmos. In that series, Sagan talks about how superstitions throughout history have shaped the world in ways no-one consciously intended. The Heike crabs, he explains, were believed to be possessed by the souls of samurai who perished in the Battle of Dan-no-ura but what looks like a samurai mask on the back of the Heike is in fact due to artificial selection, fishermen over the centuries tossing these crabs back in the water for fear of upsetting the spirits, thereby allowing these crabs to pass down the genetic codes that create the face and multiply. The third story in Kwaidan concerns Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura), a blind priest at a Buddhist temple who is invited to play the biwa and sing the tale of the battle by the ghosts of one side of the ancient battle. Takashi Shimura appears in a small role as the head priest and he knows there can only be one outcome in Hoichi's interactions with the dead.

This was a decade after Shimura stepped down from taking lead roles in Kurosawa films due to diminished ability to perform brought on by illness--I think he had a stroke that interfered with his ability to memorise lines--but he seems as good as ever in Kwaidan.

It's fitting to think of Carl Sagan and his discussion of superstition in Cosmos and how often beliefs in the sovereignty of non-existent gods or spirits resulted in death and destruction. Most of Kwaidan is shot on deliberately artificial looking indoor sets, giving the film a stylised look similar to The Ballad of Narayama or Gate of Hell with similar thematic purpose--creating the impression of a beautiful but confining world of human perception.

This is from the second story which is about the Japanese mythological figure the Yuki Onna, literally "Snow Woman". We see her eye painted on the sky, watching the two peasants long before we see her manifest in the form of a woman.

Tatsuya Nakadai stars as one of the peasants and Keiko Kishi plays the Yuki Onna. He watches her kill the other peasant but she spares him because she's attracted to him. But she warns him she'll kill him if he ever speaks of what he's seen--very much in the logic of superstition, her promise even seems to outweigh her love for him.

I would say, though, the two most effectively frightening stories are the first and last. The first story, about a married couple down on their luck and the husband abandoning the wife in order to accept an auspicious marriage arrangement, may seem to have a predictable ending at first. But its manner of executing that predictable ending is strikingly bizarre and brutal.

The final story is very short, featuring cameos from Haruko Sugimura and Ganjiro Nakamura--the former demonstrating an unexpected talent for horror screams. It's presented as an unfinished tale and the fact that it's unfinished works out to be another effective layer in the prison of supernatural malice.

Labyrinths, Languages, Elders

Last night I dreamt two eight or nine year old boys, one black and one white, were exploring the outside of an abandoned house at night. They found two sheds facing each other, the black kid went in one shed and the white kid in the other. At this point the black kid became me and I watched the white kid as he looked back at me, smiled, and seemed to drop into the ground. As I approached, I saw that the floor of his shed was an elevator that had suddenly dropped him down. It came back up without him. Realising I had the only flash light and he was down there without it, I got on the elevator and went down but discovered when I did a labyrinth of shining metal air ducts and flashing blue-green light everywhere that seemed to come from no source. And it turned out we were stuck down there, the elevator wouldn't come back down for us, so we crawled through the ducts on our hands and knees until we heard a man's voice saying something we couldn't make out. I said, "What?" aloud--in waking life and I woke myself up by saying it.

I had to be up early to-day, 7am, when I've been used to getting up at 11am lately. I'm a teaching assistant now for a Japanese class in the afternoon twice a week and I prefer to have lunch and afternoon caffeine after class. But to-day and to-morrow there were scheduled three different study sessions I had to attend, two to-day, one at 10am and one at 2pm. The teacher said she'd received e-mails from several students planning to attend but only two showed up, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Both were young women for whom English was a second language--in other words, they were learning Japanese as a third language. The first woman grew up speaking Spanish in Tijuana and is learning Japanese in the hopes of pursuing a career in the FBI. The other one spoke only Tagalog until she picked up English in third grade somehow just from being in regular American classes. I really envy the ability some people have to absorb language.

I don't have to be up quite as early for to-morrow's session. I wonder if anyone will show up. I've hardly had any time to read the bible to-day. I'm in Psalms, there sure are a lot of them. I've gotten the King James Bible on audio, too, so part of the time I've been listening to it while playing Skyrim which is certainly an interesting juxtaposition. I can't really listen to it while playing Alien: Isolation since your life depends on listening for a pin drop or making absolutely sure you don't make any noise. Which is cool, in its way, but I have to admit I ache for action, which is another reason why I'm playing Skyrim again. I noticed the official Elder Scrolls Twitter feed still talks about Skyrim mods and news and doesn't seem to mention Elder Scrolls Online, perhaps related to the fact that Bethesda, I've learned, had nothing to do with creating Elder Scrolls Online. Now I feel slightly less weird about not wanting to play it. Which I guess means I'm an Elder Scrolls completist. Though I still haven't played Arena . . . I'm rambling . . . did I mention I didn't get a lot of sleep last night?

"'Keep Your Temper,' Said the Caterpillar"

Now just past halfway through the bible, I'm tempted to say the message of the book is "There is no god." Except for explicitly supernatural things like parting the Red Sea, one could as well substitute luck for God. God says he'll reward the righteous and those who follow him, but then King Saul's punished for not fulfilling a genocide and sacrificing animals in an improper fashion, even though he intended those sacrifices to honour God. And there are several instances where God empowered the enemies of Israel to teach a lesson to a king or citizen who did something wrong. So no matter what happens, you can take it as evidence of God's will. If a heathen is doing well, it's because God's empowered him to teach his disobedient flock a lesson. If the follower of God is doing poorly, it's because God was testing him. Even the deaths of Job's children were just a test and at the end of the Book of Job he gets the exact same number of sons and daughters as those that Satan killed. And we're clearly meant to take those kids to be fit recompense which leads me to another observation about the bible in general--individual identity is meaningless. Everyone is judged only by whether they follow the Lord or not. And who can really say who's doing that?

I think back to the eighteenth century preacher Jonathan Edwards and his impressively grim and obsessive sermons make a lot of sense. But there's plenty of impressive grim in the bible itself--the Book of Job is definitely my favourite so far. It would be just for the description of Leviathan alone, the influence of which is clear on Lovecraft, Tolkien, and Melville.

Job 40

. . .

[God speaking to Job]8 Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more.

9 Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?

10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

11 Who hath prevented me, that I should repay him? whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine.

12 I will not conceal his parts, nor his power, nor his comely proportion.

13 Who can discover the face of his garment? or who can come to him with his double bridle?

14 Who can open the doors of his face? his teeth are terrible round about.

15 His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.

16 One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

17 They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.

18 By his neesings a light doth shine, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the morning.

19 Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out.

20 Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or caldron.

21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth.

22 In his neck remaineth strength, and sorrow is turned into joy before him.

23 The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm in themselves; they cannot be moved.

24 His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone.

25 When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

26 The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

27 He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

28 The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

29 Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.

30 Sharp stones are under him: he spreadeth sharp pointed things upon the mire.

31 He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

32 He maketh a path to shine after him; one would think the deep to be hoary.

33 Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

34 He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.

But the bulk of the Book of Job is a real meditation in the kind of psychology implied by all the preceding books, even though I've read that Job is thought to be older than most of the books that precede it. God promises reward to those who follow him and yet demands worship regardless. Job struggles with the fact that he's being punished even though he hasn't done anything wrong, but the very fact that he's complaining is wrong. As God makes abundantly clear at the end, one should follow God not because God promises reward but because God said so. If God rewards you, follow God; if God injures you, follow God and say thanks. This actually reminded me of Buddhism. The Buddhist statement that "life is suffering" agrees with the Book of Job if one takes God and Satan to be metaphors for life itself. Which, again, sort of makes the existence of God irrelevant. Unless it's not! There's that neurosis again.

I was reminded, too, of Caitlin R. Kiernan's Dancy character and her following missions given by an angel. One could take the angel as Dancy's hallucination or as an actual angel and just like the bible it almost doesn't matter. So Caitlin taps into a very fundamental human compulsion, at least in humans influenced by the Hebrew Bible. And so does the Book of Job--it considers the possible existence of altruism and the intrinsic value of suffering. Also like Buddhism, it encourages the dissolution of identity--Job asks his would be advisers if his life means anything. If his good works and piety aren't met with acknowledgement by God, then:

Job 10:18 Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me!

Job's folly is that he presumes value in individual human lives, he misses the point completely until the end when he gets his replacement kids.

Twitter Sonnet #717

Times captioned by places trade pink skate boards.
Upside down beans reveal the fourth question.
Tree toned television shorts spit frost hordes.
Gelatin wasn't the last clear bastion.
Retained magicians find new capes to wear.
Standing furniture claims the slip covers.
Heaven's feathers smother the gummy bear.
Improved eyelid veins move zip-line lovers.
Tropical calliper palanquins crash.
Forceps accept subjects of lifted stuff.
Camouflage ordains the hidden hip sash.
Rulers will always call the squiggly bluff.
Toothbrush crowbar balance beams betray us.
The dancers damaged nothing on the bus.

High Crabs and Low Clouds

I got a good deal on a camera a few days ago because my friend's store, called Radio Shack, is being liquidated, apparently related to a bankruptcy. I got a hundred dollars off on a Canon SX600 HS, I bought it hoping it would have manual exposure settings, like my first camera, but it looks like that's a feature Canon is no longer suffering the plebeians to have. But this new camera is much more intelligent about its automatic exposure than my previous one, I have a much easier time tricking it into giving me the exposure I want.

I went to the Bird Rock tide pools to-day to test it out. It was a cloudless sunny day but as I was leaving a fog abruptly rolled in. I drove north along the coast and it rolled in in splotches along the way.