House (1977): A newbie's impressions

      

(Poster from the 2010 Criterion restoration)

     As I have mentioned previously, this blog writing thing is a completely new experience for me.  Naturally, I thought that I might as well take this opportunity to see something I have never seen before, not just the film itself but in style and genre. This brings me on to House (1977), a surrealist comedy/horror film directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi and perhaps more famously conceptualised together with his 10 year old daughter. As a student, Obayashi abandoned the prospect of a career in medicine in favour of following his artistic interests and was accepted into his university's liberal arts academy, where he started working on a series of short experimental films. He was later offered to direct TV commercials in the then new field of television commercials, and his commercials ended up featuring stars like Kirk Douglas. I suspect he might have a hand in the reputation Japanese commercials enjoy today. 

    Following the success of Jaws, Toho invited Obayashi to develop a similar script, but the film itself lingered in development hell as no working director wanted to touch it. The job finally fell to Obayashi he used the film as a jumping off point for more mainstream success with films like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time while still retaining his experimental flair (I intend to watch that film in a comparison with the anime version and his adaptation of The Drifting Classroom)

    To describe the plot of the film is utterly pointless, but I will give you a brief walkthrough based on what I managed to get out of it on my first watch. The film opens with Fantasy (Kumiko Oba) imagining Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) as a witch while taking a photo of her. This is a small well, fantasy, when compared to her dream of wedding her teacher, Mr Togo (Kiyohiko Ozaki). It turns out there are seven girls, Gorgeous, Fantasy, Kung Fu, Prof, Sweet, Mac and Melody, whose personalities are pretty much defined by their names. We are introduced to these characters in a variety of colorful ways, like close ups of the characters faces superimposed on shots of nature, or higlighting characters by nearly blacking out the entire screen. We also learn that summer vacation is just round the corner, and that Gorgeous has separate plans from her friends, namely to go to their villa with her widowed father, who is a film composer that works for Sergio Leone. We first see her father when she goes back home from school. As she leaps into his arms I notice that he is standing in front of an unnervingly beautiful painted background that reminds me vaguely Kabuki Theatre

     Gorgeous's blissful world is all about to come crashing down though, as an otherworldy presence arrives with the force of a meteor in the form of her father's new fiance, Ryoko Ema (Haruko Wanibuchi). It is here I began to realize that for all its low budget gimmicks, the filmmakers do know what they're doing. The scene where Ema is first introduced is shot behind a glass wall that gives the effect of fracturing and recombining characters like a kaleidoscope, reflecting Gorgeous's inner turmoil. Physical as well emotional distance is emphasised, with the daughter and father stepping further away from each other until they end up on opposite sides of said balcony. I loved this sequence until the end when Gorgeous throws a towel behind and runs to her room, and then the camera rewinds and stops of a freeze frame of her running away and the towel in mid air. A bizzare choice and one I find unnecessary and distracting. 

     Anyway, we find out that she feels betrayed by her father's decision and decides to go to her aunt's place instead together with her friends, who also have had their planned trip cancelled. Oh and she also meets a kaibyo called Blanche, who will be important later on. On the journey there, the film nearly becomes a full on slapstick comedy, animated backgrounds, bright colours and all. There is even a musical sequence involving Mr Togo, who we discover is not as ideal of a man as the one shown in Fantasy's fantasies. I say nearly because in keeping with the filmmaker's desire to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, there is an explanation of Aunt's backstory, done in the style of silent films: In black and white and with title cards. Long story short, dear Aunt had lost her fiance in the second world war when he was shot down. The story was made somewhat uncomfortable by some callous commentary by the girls, one of which (you can guess who) likened the detonation of a nuclear bomb to cotton candy, but this bit one of the few stylistic choices I liked

    When they arrive at the titular house (a beautiful Tudor Revival if I do say so myself), we are treated to some splendid compositions and overhead shots that hint at the true nature of the house. As the film is shot mostly like a teenage girl's fantasies, Fantasy is naturally the one to feel something is off. As for the rest, it takes 2 girls, Mac (who get's what she deserves) and Sweet to disappear before they start to suspect something and by then it is already too late. The colour palette shifts dramatically, and the atmosphere finally feels like what one should expect out of a horror film. Around this time, Melody goes to play the grand piano and we see my favourite scene in the entire film. The metronome starts ticking by itself and the camera rotates 180 degrees around the piano as Melody starts playing. As the camera rotates round the piano and stops in front of her, a dancing skeleton is revealed in the background to create one of the most beautiful and haunting shots in the film. It stands that this scene was the only one in the film that truly creeped me out. 

     The film itself adheres to the formula of haunted house movies, so each of the girl's are picked off one by one. The methods of meeting their demise however, are far from conventional, as Obayashi is seemingly let loose in the final half hour of the film. I must say that I wasn't really affected by the deaths, except for Kung Fu, who I reserve great admiration for for nearly escaping, sacrificing herself for her friends and whom even in the throes of death manages to give the remaining 2 girls, Prof and Fantasy a lifeline. I say remaining 2 girls, but Gorgeous is actually still alive, but she is possessed by her aunt's evil spirit. It turns out her aunt actually died years ago, but was unable to move on from her fiance's death, thus her body remains on earth to eat unmarried girls as a way to replenish her vitality. Prof and Fantasy squander that lifeline though, as Prof dies and Fantasy falls into Gorgeous's arms in one final delusion. The next morning, Ema comes to visit her daughter and the film suddenly becomes bright and cheery again. She frolicks among the flowers in a stark contrast to the insanity that took place just prior.  This happy illusion is soon broken as Ema herself meets a fiery end at the hands of possessed Gorgeous 

     Simply by reading a plot summary, you can draw a parallel between Aunt and Gorgeous's desires; the fact that they both want to escape their own realities. This much is made even clearer during a scene when Gorgeous is possessed by her Aunt's spirit while putting on her makeup and her reflection in the mirror is that of her Aunt's. However, Obayashi throws in war imagery, and with it come darker implications. Obayashi himself was 7 when the bombs were dropped, and I suspect that he put a little of himself into Gorgeous's character. 

     Following this train of thought, the film develops into a more allegorical narrative about the loss of innocence, where the bomb in question is her father's betrayal of her mom's memory and the events of the film is a veiled depiction of a child's perspective to the disaster that was happening around them at the time. Like in Pan's labyrinth, the events happening must feel so unfathomable to a young child that fiction and dreamscapes are the only way to make sense of it all. Something else that was present in the film was the disconnect between older and younger generations, whether it is on views on marriage (as shown with the conversation with a female teacher at the start of the film), or the trivialisation of real life catastrophes by the girls. Most importantly, the film shows how dangerous it is for one to not be able to reconciliate with past events, not just for yourself but for future generations, as we see Gorgeous inheriting her Aunt's pain as they become one. 

    Now this could be read as a warning against letting unfulfilled love consume you, but I also have an alternate take. Hailing from Southeast Asia, it is inevitable that I hear about the animosity of countries in our region toward Japan for the atrocities they committed during World War 2, and that they have not properly apologised for those crimes. When I was ruminating on the film in preparation for this review, this memory surfaced and I was compelled to conduct further research on this subject. Although, the education system for the most part does address these events, it is not uncommon among more nationalistic groups to attempt to whitewash Japanese wartime history even in recent times, and they are not a negligible minority. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe labelled these wartime atrocities as "fabrications" and had attempted to pressure publishers to remove passages in textbooks about the actions of Japanese soldiers in other countries, revise article 9 of the Japanese constitution, and refusal to acknowledge the existence of "comfort women", going so far as to put pressure on the Philippines to remove a statue dedicated to these wartime sex slaves. 

     Such sentiments did not spring from out of the blue; during post war US administration, many war criminals were pardoned in the name of anti communism and evidence of their crimes were classified by US officials. It's no wonder that Japan's relationship with its surrounding countries takes a nosedive when the lawmakers visit that shrine every year. Have I left my subject? Perhaps. But the point I want to make is that "House" is not just a story about a number of damsels in distress getting chewed up by a malevolent force, rather it is about an attitude that if left unchecked and uncorrected, condemns every following generation into repeating the same mistakes. 

     Unfortunately, the rewards of the film is only within reach if you can get over the many frustrations that come with viewing it. By my count, it takes nearly half an hour before the girls actually get to the titular House, and in that time you have to endure some of the cheesiest special effects you'll ever see, editing that alternately makes scenes feel too long and too short (through a mix of fades within scenes, nonsensical match cuts, wipes during dialogue...), and insert scenes that range from distracting to downright annoying. There is one where Mr Toyo turns into a pile of bananas for no conceivable reason other than to gesture at what I imagine to be some kind of vague Freudian symbolism.

     It's not like the film uses that time well either; I still could not tell the cast apart even an hour into the film, and I really only started getting invested in the story when 3 of the girls had been killed off. It's also telling when people say that this is the weirdest film you will ever see, yet the part that feels truly out there only begins in the last half hour. I would describe it as  having your head thrown into a blender while seeing fireworks explode and hearing babies crying all at once, multiplied by ten. It's pretty much impossible to describe how the film achieves such an effect, but the fact that it does and does so without alienating its audience is undeniably impressive. It is here I realised that there may be some benefit in throwing everything at the audience at once: If you don't like a particular set piece, there is always a new one right round the corner. The last half hour fascinated me more than I would care to admit, not least because it may even have metaphorical value too, as a visualisation of an explosion of bottled up emotions. I felt it went on for slightly too long though, and I suspect that spectacle of this style rely highly on novelty

     The film essentially feels like a collection of gimmicky nonsense with occasional flashes of brilliance; more akin to watching a toddler play with a mixed up bin of toys than having the charm and technical mastery of something from say, Satoshi Kon, but for its intended audience, that won't matter. They're just here to see weird shit. What about the rest of us? Once we get past the cheesy technical stuff and paper thin characters, we uncover a surprisingly thought provoking and singularly bizarre relic of 70s Japanese experimental cinema.

★★★ (out of five)