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View Full Version : Pulse (Kairo) - Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001



Silencio
11-10-2007, 03:15 AM
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What most Hollywood mainstream "horror" films lack (including the 2006 remake of this very film) is a sense of subtlety. Too often they throw away plot, character development, and meaning in place of cheap scares that only momentarily entice the audience, mostly out of surprise and shock. Well, enter Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a man who knows how to turn the mundane into the profoundly frightening, and has the technical ability to use the smallest amount of technical effects to produce the largest, most affecting outcomes.

From the get-go, Pulse is a meditative, plot-wise minimalistic, tonally mysterious film whose atmosphere doesn't break throughout the entire two-hour running time. After one of their friends commits suicide, a group of twenty-somethings, nestled in the heart of metropolitan Tokyo, set out to uncover the odd occurrences that the death brings about. They receive mysterious phone calls from "strangers" who beg for help, and begin to see odd shadows on the walls of their homes, with an explanation nowhere in sight. Shortly after, we switch the focus to a young, free-living teen whose about to get his first taste of the internet. Once he's finished dialing up a connection, a strange website pops up, inviting the viewer to watch a set of "ghosts" randomly moving about in your everyday living spaces. From hereon in, the film becomes a race of survival for the group of young survivors who gradually discover that the dead are communicating to them through technology, and are hell-bent to isolate the world in utter despair and loneliness.

In the end, Pulse is a treatise, a giant metaphor on the evasiveness of ever-evolving technology. It begs the questions, will we go insofar as to isolate our very existence and render ourselves incommunicable to the point where we can't differentiate the living from the dead? Pulse sure as hell thinks so. It's no surprise then, that on more than one occasion, a character speaks of not being able to tell the "ghosts" apart from the living, or how an abandoned factory becomes a common set-piece in the film, illustrating the evolution from our once man-made resources to a world where we rely on robotics and machinery to fulfill our most dire needs. But Kiyoshi Kurosawa's main concern is on us, the people, and the loss of understanding and interdependence that technology, and particularly the invention of the internet, has brought about. In one scene, a character remarks about how he sought out the internet to meet people, to which the other replies, "people don't really connect, you know, we all live separately". And truer words couldn't summarize Kurosawa's leading intent and themes. At the end of the day, we're all waiting to connect, to relate to at least one other person, so that our banal existence on this planet doesn't feel so lonely and wasted. It's only appropriate that in the climax and closing moments of the film, complete strangers bond together in unison and familiarity. Not out of love, lust, or compassion, but because we humans need and depend on each other. Consider this exchange in one of the film's best scenes:

Girl: "Where did everyone go?"
Boy: "I'm here. I'm here beside you. Even if there's no one else, it doesn't matter. We are both definitely here."

But aside from all the thematic mumbo-jumbo, Pulse is also a terrific mood piece of frightening and suspenseful proportions. Kurosawa uses lighting and shadows to his full advantage, creating creepy scenes where the camera lingers on the open space of a darkly-lit room, slightly obscuring the dominating object, until something moves in the background, and a few seconds later, is up close to the screen, with the viewer never expecting any of it. Like mentioned earlier, Kurosawa knows to how to make the mundance into something unique. He resorts from exploiting his audience with shoddy sound effects and cheap scares, instead opting for the quietly disturbing, creating some of the most unsettling horror imagery in recent memory. Kudos to the wonderful young cast who breathe life into their characters in this unnerving, languid, profoundly moving descent into post-apocalyptic human isolation by way of 21st century technology.

Rowland
11-10-2007, 03:28 AM
My favorite scene the last time I watched this was when the computer girl embraces the "presence" of her ghostly companion. It is masterfully constructed and executed, as moving as it is deeply unsettling and tense. Every time I watch Pulse, different moments stand out.

That said, I am a bit tired of hearing about it, but I suppose it deserves that attention over most of its modern brethren.

Raiders
11-10-2007, 03:34 AM
Unlike Rowland, I will never tire of hearing about this film. Every time I watch it, I feel compelled to move it higher on my all-time favorites list.

Rowland
11-10-2007, 03:37 AM
Unlike Rowland, I will never tire of hearing about this film. Every time I watch it, I feel compelled to move it higher on my all-time favorites list.I suppose I've just read people discuss the movie and its fairly explicit subtext to death, without much interpretive deviation. I hope some of his movies that aren't yet available in the US are released soon, because I'd love to talk about them. His yakuza movies are terribly fascinating.

Silencio
11-10-2007, 03:50 AM
My favorite scene the last time I watched this was when the computer girl embraces the "presence" of her ghostly companion. It is masterfully constructed and executed, as moving as it is deeply unsettling and tense. Every time I watch Pulse, different moments stand out.The way the shots in that scene are edited together is simply transcendent. Kurosawa's technique is impeccable.

How is Cure, to those who've seen it? I think I'll watch that one next.

Rowland
11-10-2007, 03:52 AM
How is Cure, to those who've seen it? I think I'll watch that one next.It's one of his best, I think you'll dig it.

I take it then that this is your first movie of his?

Silencio
11-10-2007, 03:57 AM
It's one of his best, I think you'll dig it.Good to hear.


I take it then that this is your first movie of his?Yep, and I'm definitely eager to check out more. I hear Bright Future is one worth seeing as well.

Boner M
11-10-2007, 04:41 AM
I found this maddeningly repetitive at the time I watched it, but it's settled well. Deserves a repeat, after which I may deem it the masterpiece that its supporters do. I remember iosos damned it for likening loneliness to something that can be caught as easily as a cold, but I think that's the level that the film's critique of technology works most hauntingly on; Kurosawa suggests that our emotions are so inextricably linked with the technology around us that eternal solitude isn't something that requires cultivation through extensive social interaction - it's just a click away from us.

Bosco B Thug
11-10-2007, 05:57 AM
I love the film's bluntness in dealing with human's bleakest emotional fears about eternity. I also love the random acts of walking blindly into corners and vase smashing. The themes are explicit, but the film's totally surreal and spontaneous. Which is why the streamlined remake just seemed inherently disrespectful.

number8
11-10-2007, 06:32 AM
It's one of his best, I think you'll dig it.

Correction: It IS his best.

Rowland
11-10-2007, 06:19 PM
Correction: It IS his best.
I find it difficult to choose between Cure, Pulse, and Serpent's Path.

DSNT
11-10-2007, 07:05 PM
I find it difficult to choose between Cure, Pulse, and Serpent's Path.
Not difficult for me. Of the K. Kurosawa's I've seen:

1. Kairo

(big gap)

2. Bright Future
3. Cure
4. Doppelganger.

My Kairo review is somewhere out there on the interweb.

Cult
11-10-2007, 09:48 PM
This reminds me, I need to watch my 'copy' of Barren Illusion. What's the score on that one?

Rowland
11-10-2007, 09:52 PM
This reminds me, I need to watch my 'copy' of Barren Illusion. What's the score on that one?Whoa, I need this. Where did you get it?

Cult
11-10-2007, 10:08 PM
Whoa, I need this. Where did you get it?
Karagarga.

Rowland
11-10-2007, 10:10 PM
Karagarga.Geez, I need to join that place.

Do they have Sweet Home?

Cult
11-10-2007, 10:14 PM
Geez, I need to join that place.

Do they have Sweet Home?
Actually, I was wrong, it was FSS--but I just searched and Karagarga does have it also.

Other K. Kurosawa's they have (not including more obvious ones like Kairo, Cure, Doppelganger, etc):

Sweet Home
The Guard from the Underground
License to Live
Serpent's Path
Eyes of the Spider
The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl
The House of Bugs
Kandagawa Wars

I'm going to have a field day. Or a field couple of months.

Rowland
11-10-2007, 10:17 PM
What is FSS?

Damn you expert pirates. The only places I know about are the big ones like isoHunt.

megladon8
11-10-2007, 10:25 PM
I still find the scene when they are hiding behind the couch and the woman does that super creepy dance/swing incredible frightening.

That is the stuff of nightmares. Mine, anyways.

Cult
11-10-2007, 10:58 PM
What is FSS?

Damn you expert pirates. The only places I know about are the big ones like isoHunt.
FSS is the one I linked you to when you asked about Loft. It's a nice community, but KG was a much bigger selection. Though I wouldn't have gotten a KG invite without FSS.

dreamdead
11-10-2007, 11:09 PM
I showed this film to my freshmen students and have simultaneously enjoyed and become dismayed by the lack of comprehension they exhibit after viewing it. A few of my brighter kids grasped the thematic elements that Silencio identified, and we should have some good discussion next about the disintegration of positive relationships. If the film is largely an examination of society's existential crisis on mortality and communication, there nonetheless remain some gaps that are fascinating to consider. One of the most intriguing questions is why Kawashima dies at the end. Is the death a punishment for his trying to rescue Harue (thus chronicling the negative consequences of interpersonal dependence) or for his trying to secure safe passage out for himself and Michi. It ultimately falls on the fact that he and Michi try to resurrect Harue's affection, but is he punished for this reason or is there a statement about how his dedication to Michi is also damning?.

Kurosawa is a master of ambiguity, and it's to the film's benefit that he removes most narrative elements from explanation (the red tape, for example). It makes the film more stark and barren, and thus more unsettling, as we're left in the dark.

For those who've seen the American remake, I find it fascinating that Kurosawa posits the need to keep going, to keep escaping, even if the film ends more or less nihilistically. However, Sonzero's remake underscores how the survivors seek shelter with the military. If that's not a conscious ideological statement of American dependence on the military (one that's posited positively) I don't know what is, especially since Kurosawa shows no interest in ideology of this kind...

Rowland
11-10-2007, 11:18 PM
dies at the end. Is the death a punishment for his trying to rescue Harue (thus chronicling the negative consequences of interpersonal dependence) or for his trying to secure safe passage out for himself and Michi. It ultimately falls on the fact that he and Michi try to resurrect Harue's affection, but is he punished for this reason or is there a statement about how his dedication to Michi is also damning? It's all in his confrontation with the "ghost" in the factory room, both literally (in that the "lonely" curse is passed onto him) and on a deeper level. Note his revelation in that scene.


Kurosawa is a master of ambiguity, and it's to the film's benefit that he removes most narrative elements from explanation (the red tape, for example). It makes the film more stark and barren, and thus more unsettling, as we're left in the dark.He still does include a scene where someone posits a possible explanation behind how the epidemic of sorts started. I read somewhere that the critic Matt Zoller Seitz interpreted it as Kurosawa mocking the conventions of the genre, but I don't really buy that.