Shindō Kaneto's films Kuroneko and Onibaba: traditional and innovative manifestations of demonic embodiments

Abstract

Shindō Kaneto's films Kuroneko and Onibaba create original embodiments of a traditional Japanese ritualistic pattern of a human being vanquishing a demonic threat. In Kuroneko real female demonic creatures use a male's sexual desire to realize their revenge, but are eventually vanquished. At first glance this film appears to be merely a relatively superior example of the ‘monstrous cat films’ (kaibyō eiga), a very popular genre in the 1950s and 1960s, and one that only superficially reflected the more existential traditional meaning of the ritualistic demonic pattern. However, Shindō synergizes several narrative parts taken from the traditional theatre to create a unique and complex narrative for this film, which is not found as such in the traditional theatre. In Onibaba, Shindō innovatively explores the demonic pattern through one character who uses a certain element of this tradition as a disguise – a plot device – but then becomes inextricably drawn into the pattern itself: a female character uses a demonic mask in an attempt to prevent the uncontrollable sexual passion of another woman for a man whom she herself passionately desires, but she is gradually absorbed into the mask itself, and eventually vanquished. In both films Shindō uses traditional elements of space, mask, make-up, objects and movements.