If I've learned nothing else from the lessons thrust down my spine by the vigilant fists of fate, then at least I picked up the following;
Asian Filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa doesn't for a second give a good fuck in a bucket about trivialities like narrative or plot or "sense", and if you thought he did, then you're so wrong as to be right, almost. But not quite.
Maybe the blurb on the back of the case will say about "Ooh, spooky shit goes down like you wouldn't fucking believe, as ghosts start appearing all over the place and also somebody gets murdered", but probably that right there will be the least of the film's concerns.
Also, if, like The Duke, you bought a Region 3 version, then probably those sentiments will be expressed via some gloriously awful translatory work. "You wouldn't believe. Ghosts are appearing and a murder of somebody, but spooky shit." That kinda linguistic hilarity.
Anyhow, what happened a while back was that The Duke, inspired by the existential concerns and general eeriness of this Kurosawa cat's motion-flickery, picked up a copy of his 2000 spook-fest Korei, or Séance. Through some supernatural tomfoolery of some sort, the expected review of said work never surfaced. Maybe it went off into the woods for to find a gypsy witch ghost of some kind, and then what happened was something about a house with scary wallpaper and the camera falls over. Maybe it turned out that said review actually was a ghost, and upon learning of its new-found freedom, it set off for to offer psychological assistance to disturbed young people, or hang around in chimney's tapping on the bricks now and again, freaking the fuck out of the Victorian Aristocracy. Whatever the case, that motherfucker never showed its stinking critical hide for a second.
Until now, when, being "fucked with the flu" (medical terminology), The Duke finds himself thinking back to the film about is there a God, can science prove anything, what's it all about, Alfie, and so on.
If maybe you've seen, say, Kurosawa's 2001 epic Kairo, about ghosts come out through the internet but really all that matters is that humanity is beating itself into a tiny atomized hole and we're all fucked, then most likely you'll know what to expect from Séance, about a psychic has freaky visions but really all that matters is that humanity is beating itself into a tiny atomized hole and we're all fucked.
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