MovieChat Forums > Onibaba (1965) Discussion > Please explain what's so great about thi...

Please explain what's so great about this movie? (spoilers)

posted 15 years ago by meshaky
10 replies | jump to latest

This movie was in my 'movies to watch list'. I dont remember any movie so far that I wanted to watch badly (because it was on my list) and when I actually did watch, the movie ended up dissapointing and giving me a feel of 'not worth the time'.

Let me put my thoughts down first...

The plus points were:
1) The environment & art work was good
2) Direction seemed ok
3) The creepyness was there because of the environment, situation and the way each character carries itself

The negative points that bothered me were:
1) Really bad acting (in my opinion)
2) Too damn slow...like everytime they prepare to go out, director keeps showing the complete preparation they make before venturing out, same was the case when they eat, it showed starting from the time they fill their plate till they finish off and retire to bed....and so on in many such acts.
3) Abrupt sound effects (this can be understood to be the way things worked those days)
4) The biggest negative point of the movie was the story, it was a plain flat storyline, the content is worth like 20 mins which was stretched to an entire 100+ minutes.

Basically I may be wrong about many of the things I personally felt was wrong about this movie, but over all thing was, at the end of the movie I felt like it wasn't worth. It may not be fair to compare this with Akira Kurosawa movies seven samurai (shows what poor people go through) and Rashomon (characters and their acts), this movie had similar aspects to those movies...but you will know the difference if you have seen all 3 movies.

Net-net: The movie might be good in its own way, but I did not feel that. Feel free if you can enlighten me.

One final point: The movie is in no way ended with the kind of 'open for interpretation' genre, it just simply just stopped following the characters at that point. If you understand the whole movie, you should know not to expect something great to happen after they both jumped, watever mite have happened to the old woman or to the chase...the story can still be stretched enlessly to show those characters doing weird stuff (to the viewer) that rolls their boat.

Additional note: I am not english nor American, so save your time pointing out grammatical mistakes!

[–] SJBASHFUL 15 years ago

I was excited to see this too until I read your review. I see you have seen some Kurosawa movies but have you seen movies from other directors in this genre? Japanese directors tend to be a little slower in the story telling as they tend to push the subtly boundries, so it is something I am a little more used it. I am curious to know because if you are familiar with the genre and you still didn't like it, I may skip it

[–] meshaky 15 years ago

No, I have not seen many movies from other directors in this genre, so yes it may be probably just me. So you should give it a try, may be you would love it.

[–] electrokittie 15 years ago

I watched this a few days ago for a film class and initially thought it was pretty dull. I agree it could have been condensed into 20 minutes and the acting was highly questionable. Especially with the old woman in the final 6 minutes! However, I found it more interesting when I read documents on what the film is actually about in terms of its relation to mythology, politics, history, japanese culture and philosophy and also the context of the 1960s in post WW2 Japan. I'll post a link if I can find it. There are some very interesting points as to why the environment (such as the reeds) were focused on so intensely and of course why there were so many boobs in it.

[–] Ore-Sama 15 years ago

The negative points that bothered me were:
1) Really bad acting (in my opinion)

Based on what exactly? The actors were completely into their character, every mannerism and word flowed, every emotion played exactly as it was meant to. It was some of the best acting in the horror genre, and this isn't merely my own opinion either.

2) Too damn slow...like everytime they prepare to go out, director keeps showing the complete preparation they make before venturing out, same was the case when they eat, it showed starting from the time they fill their plate till they finish off and retire to bed....and so on in many such acts.

It really was nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be. Far a slowness goes, I found the pace fine. The film was first and foremost a character study and psychological horror with enough atmosphere and darkness to qualify as a horror film. It's not a stalk and slash movie.

3) Abrupt sound effects (this can be understood to be the way things worked those days)

So what? Abrupt sound effects are in no way a flaw and in this case, being used to create scares, it can hardly count against the film.

4) The biggest negative point of the movie was the story, it was a plain flat storyline, the content is worth like 20 mins which was stretched to an entire 100+ minutes.

You honestly think this would work with 20 minutes? It would be a mess and we'd miss out on the build up and characterization that were vital to making this film good. Even if you didn't like it, you should be able to at least understand why this would not have worked at 20 minutes. The climax would've meant a lot less if we didn't get to know these character, and really everything would've meant less. Also besides a few scenes, the film really was not stretched out at all. Most of it went by pretty quickly for me.

One final point: The movie is in no way ended with the kind of 'open for interpretation' genre, it just simply just stopped following the characters at that point. If you understand the whole movie, you should know not to expect something great to happen after they both jumped, watever mite have happened to the old woman or to the chase...the story can still be stretched enlessly to show those characters doing weird stuff (to the viewer) that rolls their boat.

Really, you can use this against any movie, that any movie could stretch out and show more. How does this apply to this movie more then any other? It's an inane point. Really, I could come up with explanations pretty damn easily on why he ended it there:wanted a memorable final image, wanted to leave viewers thinking, etc. Are you so limited as to automatically assume it's because he wasn't capable of writing an ending?

"I'm trying to bring logic into a game where I can steal hand grenades from a fish"

[–] meshaky 15 years ago

Dear Ore-Sama,

I know I stretched a little in my original post because I wrote it right after I watched the movie and I was dissapointed with the movie. That feeling I had and still have cannot be changed by anything, not even I myself can change the way I felt about it.

It's like for example, I felt a food was hot or spicy would mean I really felt it that way, no reasoning can change that feeling right? because it happened for fact. There is no standard definition for calling a food hot/spicy, (well there may really be, I just don't know lol).

Your reasons are best description of what you feel, but think about it, it could be the case that you are stretching it (positivity) as much as I am stretching it (negativity).

We are all limited in different ways, so I am not going to ask if you are you limited in any ways for thinking in a particular way, because I know the answer for sure!

I know my answers does not really respond to your explanations, but as I mentioned we both are on two different dimensions here, so it would be pointless to argue.

I think you would love to read the below article, please give it a try and let me know what you think about the article.

Why 'bad acting' can be so good
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/may/06/bad-acting-helen-m eryl-streep

[–] tenchagorda 15 years ago

Because the story is great, it has this poetry-like atmosphere and is deeper than you might think it has a lot of elements that make it work, like the setting it shows you how small can people be, but also how a huge impact we can make, the reeds moved in more abrupt ways if the characters were angry or slowly if they were sad or scared.
So is a pretty intelligent movie, it might be slow, but with that ending it makes it all worth.
I understand if you don't like the movie, but you can't say it's bad, because it's great

[–] neimand 13 years ago

A good movie...but not great...I gave it a 6.

[–] Mysteriously_Eerie 9 years ago

I know what you mean about it being slow. I definitely wasn't expecting it to be as slow as it was. I watched this over two nights. It was so slow, I just had to turn it off after the first half hour. I needed more stimulation, but when I came back to it, I knew what I was getting into, and I had no problems with the pacing. In fact, I appreciated the slow build of events.

I think it is hard to criticize acting from previous decades. As people's behavior's change, so does their perception of good acting, or maybe I should say acceptable acting. I've seen acting that was perfectly acceptable in one decade get criticized for being bad in another. So, I try to give acting a pass.

[–] Maya55555 8 years ago

It is Japanese, weird and therefore,結句いい。

"A stitch in time, saves your embarrassment." (RIP Ms. Penny LoBello)

[–] modica (4169) 5 years ago

I liked it. Interesting and the visuals along with the music were also good.