‘The Ghost of Yotsuya’ or — Quivering Textures?
You could be forgiven for accusing ‘The Ghost of Yotsuya’ (1959) of false advertising as for the first three quarters or so there’s not a single shred of anything supernatural going on in the slightest. But cool your spooky-craving jets because director Kenji Misumi is simply taking his time to convincingly set everything up so when it does all ultimately kick-off it does so in a highly satisfying, well-earned manner.
Former ronin turned umbrella maker, Iemon Tamiya (Kazuo Hasegawa), and his wife, Oiwa (Yasuko Nakada), are struggling in poverty. When the daughter of a wealthy businessman falls in love with Iemon and demands him for herself a plan is concocted to frame Oiwa for adultery thus allowing grounds for the couple’s divorce. Yet when the plan to separate Iemon and Oiwa results in a fatality it’s not long until a terrible vengeance from beyond the grave seeks its revenge on those responsible.
What Misumi does incredibly well is draw us into Iemon and Oiwa’s marriage without turning either into an outright villain or victim. So yes, Iemon is having an affair with a wealthy woman but it’s not because he no longer loves his wife but that he sees it as the only available option of improving their financial situation, something Oiwa herself has been pushing Iemon to do. This means we’re less seeing an adulterous man ill-treating his wife (although he’s still a weak and unpleasant person) and more a married couple grappling with unbearable economic and social pressures and forced into reckless and unwise decisions so we end up feeling sorry for both when events turn tragic. It’s melodramatic for sure, but it’s compelling stuff.
What also helps grip the attention is Misumi’s handling of composition, framing and colour and even though ‘The Ghost of Yotsuya’ isn’t the kaleidoscopic chromatic riot of films such as ‘Gate of Hell’ (1953) or ‘Kwaidan’ (1964) it’s no slouch when it comes to an arresting visual appeal. There’s also a carefully crafted approach to the film’s textures with detailed attention paid to the various fabrics, textiles, cloth and materials on screen which helps give an alluring tactility to everything we see. Combine this with some excellent sound design — all noise suddenly sucked from a room, etc — and this is a world that’s easy to be pulled into and enveloped by.
When the spooky shit finally begins we find we’ve been nicely primed for it to land with maximum effect and some of the imagery Misumi hits us with as the spectral world (or is this guilt-ridden madness?) intrudes on our “reality” is unnerving, uncanny and deliciously eerie.
‘The Ghost of Yotsuya’ might not be as famous as some of the Japanese kaidan films that would follow or as deliriously impactful as Misumi’s ‘Zatoichi’ and ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’ series but this is still a beguiling, frequently gorgeous, well crafted and surprisingly human example of this classic spooky tale.
