House (1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi) — Film Review
As well as my interest in Japanese, I have a love for film which led to watching a fair few Japanese films. House is one of those that stood out for me as one of the most entertaining films I have ever seen. Rewatching this film and knowing more Japanese than I have done prior, did not help me get a better grasp on this innovative, hyper cinematic experience that only gets more entertaining by the minute. The editing throughout House is really what makes it such a fun and fulfilling watch. Not to mention the theme song that plays throughout that perfectly matches the tone of childlike innocence mixed with the more sinister nature of the ghostly and vampiric themes. Director Obayashi took a lot of ideas from his daughter Chigumi that came from her own nightmares stemming from the imaginative fears that come with being a child. This is clearly the root of why the film feels much like a nightmare you’d have as a child, travelling with your friends to a big, cobweb ridden house that ends up eating you, this mixture of tones making it the prime material of a horror comedy. The conditions in which House was made meant that Japan’s studio Toho were looking to take a chance on Obayashi in the hope to make a ‘homegrown’ version of the recently popular Jaws. Obayashi having only had experience in advertisements and experimental shorts, he took this chance to instead reflect on and mock Hollywood features rather than make a replica of one. This again adds to this dream-like atmosphere through the very intentional and evident features of Western film traits.
For example, as we see the girls at the train station travelling to protagonist Gorgeous’ Aunt’s countryside home for their summer break, we see people dressed as cowboys, nuns and a priest, all very stereotypical costuming of characters in western genre films. Again the soundtrack comes through at this point as we hear Japanese-American band Godiego’s upbeat, pop song that helps produce the hyper-fabricated world of this playful film. The blatant one dimensionality to all seven of the main characters is another trait of Western film and one that again plays perfectly into Obayashi’s dreamy world. Names like Gorgeous, Kung fu, Prof (Professor), Sweetie, Mac (short for stomach), Melody and Fanta (Fantasy) all represent each girls’ singular character trait. Kung-fu’s trait is particularly utilised in the latter part of the film where the girls are being attacked by the house. These scenes contain fast, commercially paced editing (taking influence from his previous work) that becomes the scenes primary element, all that can be focused on is the bombardment of edits that make the scene a visual ecstasy full of bright colour and severed body parts flying around the room. The editing throughout this film is continually impressive and part of what makes it so unique. Techniques like Rotoscoping (animation traced over live action footage) make features so vivid and memorable, like seeing cartoony blood dripping down the hands of the Aunt as she grips a rose and seeing Gorgeous’ face fracture to reveal flames.
Animation is utilised in ways more than just this. We are brought into the pages of a children’s book displaying a train that is then transformed into the train the girls are on. This transition is one of many aspects that convey the thought that has gone into this film to commit to its eccentric world. Soon after this shot, as Gorgeous talks of her Aunt’s misfortune of her fiance dying at war, the film portrays this through an old style film reel that the girls begin to talk about as if they can see it. We are guided throughout the film to see from the girls’ perspective, shown through iris shots (this is to single out a point of interest in a circle while the rest of the frame is black) and a scene where Sweetie is alternately closing an eye at a time as she looks at Prof, we see Prof’s position changing as it would from Sweetie’s perspective. But throughout this film reel sequence, we are completely guided from their perspective as we see what they see, they are watching the film. The reality of the world they are in is broken as they comment on how handsome the fiance is and how Gorgeous looks like her mother as she talks as if they can see it. Coming from the relatively more realistic section of the film, these aspects of fantasy slowly creep in and soon come in full force once they get to the house. We see thematic nods to the impact of war on Japan’s older generations compared to the young girls’ carefree attitude to life during this sequence that paint the countryside as more traditional in comparison to a more frivolous city life. The girls themselves represent a more modern society through their mentioning of marrying for love and kung-fu’s supposedly ‘manly’ representation through her ability to protect the group. These aspects may have appealed to a younger Japanese audience in the 70s which was part of Toho’s aim considering these were the people going to the cinema. An interesting scene that I think is worth mentioning is when Mr Togo comes to try and save the girls and comes across the watermelon man from the beginning of the film. Togo is asked if he likes melons and proceeds to say he likes bananas instead, the melon man’s reaction being to jump back in shock and turn into a skeleton. This to me alludes to this modernisation of the city through Togo’s expression of perhaps preferring men to women. This might be far fetched but I thought it was interesting and noted it more on this watch than any other.
We also see nods to traditional Japanese folktales when the girls are in the countryside. Kaidan is a Japanese word for ghost stories, folktales that are strange and mysterious, that can involve the intertwining of vampires, phantoms and cats that prey upon the unwary, all features that are present in House. The Aunt’s vampiric tendencies to eat young unmarried women, and her cat, Blanche, who seems to control the essence of this sentient house, are slowly revealed so, in imaginative ways. The fourth wall is broken with direct eye contact from the Aunt to the camera, showing us that something is about to happen and she is the one who will instigate it. Not to mention that we see the Aunt dancing playfully for us as she gains energy from consuming these young girls, a playful skeleton dancing along with her for that nonsensical comedic atmosphere once again. We also hear the subtle screaming sound that comes from the opening of a door, the excessive amount of definitely moving hair that seems to creep into the bath with Gorgeous, — a subtle reference to the Japanese tale of the Onryo? — and red running water coming from the drinking barrel after the disappearance of Mac.
I could talk about this film forever, the attention to detail in its lighting to perfectly demonstrate the time of day, the painted backdrops that add so much to the innocent, dreamlike atmosphere of the film, again the animation that pulls together the appearance of a child’s nightmare, and I cannot express enough, the editing. Obayashi has thrown everything into this to make it the excessive, fantastical, unforgettable film that it is. This is a film that I love more, the more times I watch it and I hope that this review will encourage others to experience it too. Despite the spoilers, I don’t think this film can be ruined through knowing its narrative as all that it is, comes from its unique way of displaying it. I have to give this film a 10/10, one of my favourites.
