Perhaps the only comparable facet to the iconic gothic ghost child in J-horror is that the genre almost always has its finger on pulse of Universal Unconscious at turn of the 21st century. Though lesser known, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kario/Pulse is part of this tradition alongside Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on. However, the former distinguishes himself for, of all the surrealism felt throughout Japan’s psychological terrors, Kurosawa takes his rightful place as the foremost practitioner of the eerie.
The plot of Pulse is as slippery as its interpretation. What can be definitely determined is that a rash of seemingly unrelated suicides are occurring throughout Tokyo which coincides with reports of the dead communicating with the living through their Internet connections. As survivors attempt to discern what is happening, the suicide rate becomes epidemic, resulting in apocalypse.
As with the other two aforementioned films, Kurosawa bases his work around a very sustainable premise but, like almost all Japanese horror, he is careful not to beat us over the head with it. However, in many respects this is the director’s rub for, alongside Pulse’s languid pacing, the film’s obtuse attempt at subtlety makes the story lose most of its potency. We watch as the culture that, above all others, is technology driven, come to realize the socio and psychological consequences of basing one’s life around the electronic. In the process, and that which makes the feature more than mere social criticism, is that its characters learn a lesson in metaphysics and ontology, however dire they may be.
Using Luddism as his thematic springboard, Kurosawa distances his characters from one another via the computer screen in order to examine the nature of loneliness and isolation in respect to death. He deduces that, in all actuality, there might not be a substantial difference between them. After this epiphany (for the viewers, not so much the characters unless at the subconscious level), we are left walking through a mental and physical apocalypse because, truly, an existential crisis is at hand, the likes of which not even Camus himself could easily navigate.
The director does a wonderful job of representing his ideas. As ghosts attempt to reach out to the living, we are first met with a tale of a message in a bottle, i.e. the motif of the past catching up with the present. Likewise, the filmmaker juxtaposes the sterility of the isolated virtual exchange with the lively nature of a greenhouse business, which is literally bubbling with life and, at that, twice over–human and plant. However, though Kurosawa misses a beat by issuing us a computer laboratory filled with people, such is counterbalanced by the introduction of a computer program where two dots, should they meet, die as a consequence of their interaction. Heavy stuff indeed for not even Joseph Heller could force a nervous laugh at Kurosawa’s relentless use of Murphy’s law.
But, for all of the girth of the conceit within and the careful articulation of its ideas, Pulse suffers from being a bit too vague due as the viewer is left grasping for straws as even the loosest interpretation becomes a trial by the climax of the film. This would be fine if we didn’t sense that Kurosawa is attempting to convey something of great importance to us but, alas, we are unable to release ourselves into Pulse’s atmosphere for fear we might miss something vital in respect to the storyline. What exactly do the ghosts want? Are they indeed responsible for the suicide epidemic? What will be the consequences of the ensuing apocalypse? It is not that there are no ready answers to these questions, it is just that Kurosawa doesn’t seem to want to address them. Yet, how are we to feel his work if we are too concerned with what it means?
There is as much to be admired in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse as there is to distain. However, the bits which happen to be good are really good, whereas the less laudatory pieces pass by without much notice (unless one deems the premise is too derivative of Ringu), thereby making the feature a fairly well done production based around a concept that is rarely acknowledged within the genre: isolation as a consequence of technology and what isolation, in and of itself, means. That is, if this is what Kurosawa means . . .
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
