In those film extracts that had been screened in Wednesday’s class, the 1965 Japanese horror film, Kwaidan: The Woman of the Snow would definitely impress me the most, which it also related to my first idea of PB4 in some way, that there’s a need to understand why audiences would feel anxious while watching horror films, in order switch the genre of a film into the horror or thriller imperceptibly.
What I had noticed
- sound effects, sudden silence
- artistic transitions & unreal settings
- tone difference between scenes
The sudden silence, seems to notice us something dramatic, serious is going to happen, that terrifying us psychologically as we cannot imagine and predict what is going to happen next, as well as feeling anxious about it, which is completely different as the Western horror of stimulating our senses by using disgusting scenes (Dessem, 2009).
Its transition between scenes and the style of settings also look pretty ‘Japanese’, had indued it a mood of artistic and fantastic. For instance, a long lasting Cross Dissolve transition had applied on the wife’s appearance when the samurai met her for the first time, which seems to imply us that his wife wasn’t just an ordinary girl, leading us to mentally involve in it, to think of what was that unusual transition means, that she might hide a huge secret. Furthermore, it had a painting-like setting, that make the whole story look unreal at all, giving us the perception of a folk tale which we won’t judge and criticize about it (suspension disbelief), and concentrate more on the narrative itself.
A weird transition, cr. Kwaidan
Painting-like setting, cr. Kwaidan
As well as, the director had used the differences of tone to separate the story into three different parts, the samurai had threatened by the Snow Woman, the samurai met his wife, and the samurai broke his promise. Where this technique might disturb our viewing experience as its incoordination, but also could let our brain to recognize its time and space differences in subconsciously if we are familiar with it.
Other than frighten audiences visually by using blood and disgusting creature, this kind of mental terrifying could more likely be a gainful reference of my project, that making suspenses could be an effective method to create the atmosphere of horror/thriller, and tone switching could be used to in order to change the genre of a film in a smooth way.
Bibliography
Dessem, M. (2009, March 25). #90: Kwaidan (blog post). THE CRITERION CONTRAPTION. Retrieved from http://criterioncollection.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/90-kwaidan.html