ONIBABA (DEMON WOMAN) (THE HOLE)

Japan, 1964, 103 minutes, Black and white.
Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Sato.
Directed by Kaneto Shindo.

The Hole is now considered a classic Japanese film. It was written and directed Kaneto Shindo, a prolific film-maker who began writing screenplays and adapting novels in 1941 and is credited with one hundred and forty-two films with which he worked as a writer. His catalogue of films directed numbers forty-two. However, he is not as well known in the west as many other Japanese directors of the period.

This film is quite brutal in its presentation of human nature. It focuses on a young man who goes off to the wars in the 15th century. He leaves behind his mother and his wife. To survive, they rob Samurai warriors returning from the wars, sell their goods and cast their bodies down a bottomless pit, the hole of the title. When a neighbour returns with news that the son has died, he joins them in their enterprise, trying to do better for himself. The daughter-in-law begins an affair with a neighbour. The mother takes a mask from a Samurai, begins to wear it, cannot remove it – and is seen and considered by the people around as a demon.

The film was quite explicit in its day for its sex scenes and was refused a certificate in some countries. However, these scenes now form part of an integrated picture of human nature in great difficulty, succumbing to evil impulses, people being mistaken for demons because of their appearance and behaviour. It is an interesting critique of Japanese history and society through the cinema of the 60s.

1. The impact of the black and white photography, the Panavision?

2. The atmosphere and locations, the reeds on the marshes, the hovel, Japan itself?

3. The atmosphere of Japan in the Middle Ages? How important was this for the theme? The theme as applicable in a remote age rather than a modern age?

4. How did the film portray isolation, the elements of war, the resourcefulness within nature, the elemental aspects of life in isolation?

5. The impact of the war deaths and the women despoiling the corpses? The women surviving as birds of prey? Audience response to the women in this context?

6. The emphasis on the hole, as title of the film? As symbol for the themes?

7. Hachi, the significance of his return, its dramatic impact, the death of his friend? His relationship to the women?

8. How well did the film draw the character of the girl and of the mother in law? As sympathetic in themselves? Attractive and repellent?

9. The film's presentation of the dependence of the girl with her mother in law and vice versa? Hachi drawn into this web?

10. Their survival in the war situation? The theme of survival, the unreality and unnaturalness of war? Behaviour within war situations as different from ordinary behaviour?

11. The presentation of the ordinary ways of life within the war context, for example, the fishing, the grass etc?

12. The emphasis on Hachi and his passion for the daughter? Her returning of it The reaction of the mother in law? The film's presentation of the dependence of the girl with her mother In law and vice versa? Hecht drawn into this web?

13. The visual presentation of this relationship, for example, the night-running, the lovemaking etc.?

14. The effect of this on the mother in law and her subsequent behaviour?

15. The intrusion of the Samurai into this world? His talk of beauty, the symbolic significance? The fascination of his mask? The theme of mask, appearances and reality?

16. The death of the Samurai and the revelation of his true face? Foreboding for the culmination of the film?

17. The impact of the mask frightening the girl? The threat and menace of the mother in law? Her motivation?

18. Hachi and the girl confronting this danger? The theme of the mask growing on the mother in law? Her frenzy in not being able to get it off? Her decay? The supernatural overtones of the woman in the mask? Her using it for superstitious purposes? Superstitious symbols of subconscious motivation? Psychological threat? Was this convincing or contrived?

19. The hole as the culmination of the film? The revelation of the mother in law and what she had done? Her assertion that she was human?

20. Comment on the visual presentation of the horror, the menace? Did this all combine for a penetrating look at inter-relationships and fear, or was it remaining on the level of a powerful horror film?