THE DUKE ON KAIRO
Western horror has been slow to pick up on the themes explored
and dissected by much recent Asian fare. Still content with
rampaging hillbillies, with or without merchandise-friendly
facial plastics, Hollywood has been continuing to personify
evil via the same old archetypes, whilst Eastern audiences have
been getting their chills from sources much closer to home. For
them, the knife is much less worrying than the dishwasher used
to clean it.
You may be familiar with the likes of The Videotape What Can
Kill You (1998, Hideo Nakata), or possibly even The Phone What
Can Kill You (2002, Byeong-ki Ahn), but in-between these slabs
of technology-ran-amok hokum, came two hours of surreal
eeriness in the form of The Website What Can Kill You, written
and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and also known as Kairo, or,
indeed, Pulse.
Kurosawa is so unconcerned with nonsense like exposition and,
on occasion, formal narrative, that Kairo may appear to some to
be bewildering at best, pretentious naval-gazing at worst.
But if one is going to spend two hours gazing at a naval, this
is certainly a fine example of such to be getting on with.
The plot, at face value anyhow, concerns a website which rudely
pops up unannounced on the screens of various browsers,
enquiring as to whether or not one would wish to meet a ghost?
As spam goes, it's certainly much more intriguing than "Free
Prescription Drugs What Weren't Stolen, Honest" or "God
Almighty, Duke, Your Penile Apparatus Is Laughable, Is What".
Before long pretty much every character, and anyone said
characters ever bumped into for half a second, have been
enticed by this supernatural pitch, and have got clicking where
none clicking should be performed.
This is the bare-bones of the plot, and as far as action or
spooky hijinks go, that's almost your lot. Because Kairo is
less concerned with silly ghost stories than it is with the
isolation, the depersonalisation brought on by this influx of
communication technologies. The characters wander around in a
monosyllabic daze for much of the film, exhibiting the social
skills of especially sheltered hedgehogs. Tellingly, only the
young fellow who hasn't much of a clue about this whole
internet malarkey is fit to consistently string a sentence
together for the duration of the running-time.
Explanations are offered as to why these websites are cropping
up, why strange, shadowy forms are suddenly appearing every
time you turn a corner, and why folks are getting all
hystericalised and boarding up rooms as quick as they've been
erected. Some of these hypothetical ponderings are granted a
fair amount of consideration; others are shrugged off, never to
be mentioned again.
The one that Kurosawa seems most intrigued by, however, is the
notion that the afterlife, rather than being an infinite plane,
is in fact full-up, and so now the spirits of folk what died
must wander about between realities, cropping up here and there
and freaking the shit out of anyone they come into contact
with, via some out-of-focus contortions and gravity-defying
hair.
But if some folks were annoyed by the absence of all that
happy-ending, definite resolution malarkey in Ring, they
certainly won't be at all pleased with Kairo. In fact, they may
well be downright annoyed by the whole affair.
But that would be to miss the point, and points, by their very
nature, are meant to be observed, to be acknowledged.
And the point here seems to be that Kurosawa is terrified by
the prospect of eternal loneliness, and also none-too-pleased
about the self-imposed segregation we exist within via this
here cyberspace get-up. He craves personal, human interaction,
rather than prolonged debates about whether or not Episode III
Will Own Your Ass, with some assemblage of text on a screen
somewhere.
In this respect, Kairo is as much a science fiction thriller as
a full-blown Ghosties & Ghoulies affair. It shares much of the
reactionary fear of technology that many great sci-fi works
exhibit, staring with uncertainty towards the latest
developments in home-entertainment appliances. It's ironic, but
somehow crucial, that this raft of technophobic fright-fests
stems from possibly the most technology-driven society on earth.
Wes Craven had been pencilled in to direct a remake of this
Korean oddity, but found his attempts thwarted by studios who
insisted it was too similar to Ring. It's hard to see these
alleged similarities. Yes, it's leisurely paced, and has
communication technology getting all homicidal, but there the
common ground comes to an abrupt conclusion. Kairo has no truck
with urban-legend "Die In Seven Days" carry-ons, nor has it
much of a detective narrative running throughout. There's no
race-against-time to stop this diabolical spirit-spitting,
because, as Kurosawa almost audibly sighs within the celluloid,
there's nothing we can do about any of it. The possibility of
an emptiness for all eternity is very much a reality for these
characters, and really, if they were being honest, chances are
the studios simply didn't feel like pumping the money into an
existential fable about the emptiness of death, especially one
with sparse opportunities for CGI-horses getting all splattered.
Coming soon - The iPod What Can Kill You!
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
and dissected by much recent Asian fare. Still content with
rampaging hillbillies, with or without merchandise-friendly
facial plastics, Hollywood has been continuing to personify
evil via the same old archetypes, whilst Eastern audiences have
been getting their chills from sources much closer to home. For
them, the knife is much less worrying than the dishwasher used
to clean it.
You may be familiar with the likes of The Videotape What Can
Kill You (1998, Hideo Nakata), or possibly even The Phone What
Can Kill You (2002, Byeong-ki Ahn), but in-between these slabs
of technology-ran-amok hokum, came two hours of surreal
eeriness in the form of The Website What Can Kill You, written
and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and also known as Kairo, or,
indeed, Pulse.
Kurosawa is so unconcerned with nonsense like exposition and,
on occasion, formal narrative, that Kairo may appear to some to
be bewildering at best, pretentious naval-gazing at worst.
But if one is going to spend two hours gazing at a naval, this
is certainly a fine example of such to be getting on with.
The plot, at face value anyhow, concerns a website which rudely
pops up unannounced on the screens of various browsers,
enquiring as to whether or not one would wish to meet a ghost?
As spam goes, it's certainly much more intriguing than "Free
Prescription Drugs What Weren't Stolen, Honest" or "God
Almighty, Duke, Your Penile Apparatus Is Laughable, Is What".
Before long pretty much every character, and anyone said
characters ever bumped into for half a second, have been
enticed by this supernatural pitch, and have got clicking where
none clicking should be performed.
This is the bare-bones of the plot, and as far as action or
spooky hijinks go, that's almost your lot. Because Kairo is
less concerned with silly ghost stories than it is with the
isolation, the depersonalisation brought on by this influx of
communication technologies. The characters wander around in a
monosyllabic daze for much of the film, exhibiting the social
skills of especially sheltered hedgehogs. Tellingly, only the
young fellow who hasn't much of a clue about this whole
internet malarkey is fit to consistently string a sentence
together for the duration of the running-time.
Explanations are offered as to why these websites are cropping
up, why strange, shadowy forms are suddenly appearing every
time you turn a corner, and why folks are getting all
hystericalised and boarding up rooms as quick as they've been
erected. Some of these hypothetical ponderings are granted a
fair amount of consideration; others are shrugged off, never to
be mentioned again.
The one that Kurosawa seems most intrigued by, however, is the
notion that the afterlife, rather than being an infinite plane,
is in fact full-up, and so now the spirits of folk what died
must wander about between realities, cropping up here and there
and freaking the shit out of anyone they come into contact
with, via some out-of-focus contortions and gravity-defying
hair.
But if some folks were annoyed by the absence of all that
happy-ending, definite resolution malarkey in Ring, they
certainly won't be at all pleased with Kairo. In fact, they may
well be downright annoyed by the whole affair.
But that would be to miss the point, and points, by their very
nature, are meant to be observed, to be acknowledged.
And the point here seems to be that Kurosawa is terrified by
the prospect of eternal loneliness, and also none-too-pleased
about the self-imposed segregation we exist within via this
here cyberspace get-up. He craves personal, human interaction,
rather than prolonged debates about whether or not Episode III
Will Own Your Ass, with some assemblage of text on a screen
somewhere.
In this respect, Kairo is as much a science fiction thriller as
a full-blown Ghosties & Ghoulies affair. It shares much of the
reactionary fear of technology that many great sci-fi works
exhibit, staring with uncertainty towards the latest
developments in home-entertainment appliances. It's ironic, but
somehow crucial, that this raft of technophobic fright-fests
stems from possibly the most technology-driven society on earth.
Wes Craven had been pencilled in to direct a remake of this
Korean oddity, but found his attempts thwarted by studios who
insisted it was too similar to Ring. It's hard to see these
alleged similarities. Yes, it's leisurely paced, and has
communication technology getting all homicidal, but there the
common ground comes to an abrupt conclusion. Kairo has no truck
with urban-legend "Die In Seven Days" carry-ons, nor has it
much of a detective narrative running throughout. There's no
race-against-time to stop this diabolical spirit-spitting,
because, as Kurosawa almost audibly sighs within the celluloid,
there's nothing we can do about any of it. The possibility of
an emptiness for all eternity is very much a reality for these
characters, and really, if they were being honest, chances are
the studios simply didn't feel like pumping the money into an
existential fable about the emptiness of death, especially one
with sparse opportunities for CGI-horses getting all splattered.
Coming soon - The iPod What Can Kill You!
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
