Dissolving the boundaries between dream and reality, between this world and the next,
It's so terrifying that it shakes your sense of reality
I'm a backpacker, so if I were to travel, I would choose India over Hawaii. Even if it meant being a little scared, I wanted an experience that would give me something. In that respect, "Ugetsu Monogatari" had an even greater impact on me than my trip to India. I first saw it when I was 14 years old. Its mysterious horror felt like a nightmare.
When he finds out that the woman he was flirting with earlier is actually a ghost, the feast suddenly turns into a nightmare. In a strange yet realistic turn of events, the world of the film begins to blend into reality, and he begins to wonder if the world he lives in is actually a fiction... I remember watching it once and thinking that I had had enough of the worldview that distorts my sense of reality (wry smile).
But as time passes, my curiosity for scary things drives me to pick it up again. Mizoguchi Kenji is a director who has continued to film scenes in which the boundaries between "dream and reality" and "this world and the next" melt away, and Miyagawa Kazuo's long takes, which make it seem as if reality and fantasy have suddenly merged, are also impressive.
In "Hyakka," which I wrote the original novel for and directed, I visualized the sensation of dementia, where reality and memory blend together, and it was heavily influenced by Mizoguchi's works, such as this one and "Sansho the Bailiff." It's scary yet beautiful. I want to look away, but I can't help but watch it. I'm always drawn to art, where opposing elements overlap, like a light shower. "Ugetsu Monogatari" is the pinnacle of that.
