DVD Review – Jigoku
If it’s released under the Criterion Collection label, it’s probably either awesome or boring. Which is this?
Jigoku (Japan, 1960)
In the beginning of Jigoku, two young men hit someone with their car, then drive off, leaving him to die in the street. What they don’t know is that someone saw them. But this isn’t I Know What You Did Last Summer. Instead, Jigoku is nothing less than a front-row tour of Hell; or rather, of Hells: the Buddhist Eight Hells of Fire and the Eight Hells of Ice. The first half of the film is a riot of debauchery: murder, suicide, greed, lust, deceit, neglect, sins of action and sins of omission. The second half is the aforementioned journey through Hell, which isn’t quite as gripping. Eternal torment is interesting, sure, but it’s the sins that get you there that are really fascinating.
Shiro is a student in Tokyo, on the path to a life of academia and engaged to his theology professor’s virtuous daughter. But on the very night their engagement is formalized, Shiro unwisely accepts a ride from his classmate Tamura. Tamura is a nasty piece of work; selfish, rude, licentious and cruel. So when they accidentally run down a drunken Yakuza, it’s no surprise that Tamura takes off, leaving the man to die. But they don’t get away like they think they do; the Yakuza’s mother witnessed the accident and soon she and the gangster’s lover are out for revenge.
Shiro decides to tell his fiancée what happened. She’s properly horrified and insists they tell her father and ask his advice, but on the way to her parents’ house she’s killed in a taxi wreck. Shiro returns to his hometown to visit his critically ill mother. He finds her near death, and his father openly living with his trashy mistress. There are new neighbors, too: a drunken artist who’s painting a Hell scroll, and his daughter, who is identical to Shiro’s dead fiancée. On top of that, Shiro’s father is one of the directors of a nearby nursing home. The nursing home patients are dying of neglect while the Board of Directors and the head doctor are stealing the government funds they receive to care for them. On top of that, Tamura suddenly arrives. He’s gotten wind that Shiro told his fiancée about the accident, and he’s pissed. Shiro’s fiancee’s parents then breeze into town. Then the Yakuza’s mother and lover show up, loaded for bear. It all comes to a head during a party to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the nursing home. The result is an orgy of death: death by falling, death by poisoning, death by hanging, death by gunshot wound, death by strangulation…you get the picture. And pretty much everyone involved quite literally goes to Hell.
Shiro is then treated to a meeting with his dead fiancée, who reveals she was pregnant when she died. Now he has to chase down the spirit of his unborn daughter and save her (from what, exactly, is never made clear; I mean, she’s already in Hell). Along the way he gets to see the punishments inflicted on various kinds of transgressors. And they are gruesome: people are flayed, boiled alive, forced to swim in blood and filth. Thirsty people are tortured by a pool of water that shrinks when they get close. Troll-haired demons put out eyes, cut out tongues, chop off limbs and heads.
The point of it all being: Hell sucks.
Shiro runs after his daughter the whole time, trying to catch her and maybe, just maybe, get a ticket to Heaven.
Jigoku has that theatrical feel you see in Japanese movies from the period (like in Ugetsu or Kwaidan). Sets are highly stylized and obviously shot on a sound stage. The pacing is slow, sometimes tedious, and the acting is exaggerated, as if this were a play and not a film, and the actors are trying to emote to the audience in the back rows. Yoichi Numata, as Tamura, is particularly over-dramatic in the Hell scene, but conveys an effective air of leering menace in the first half of the movie. Shigeru Amachi is solid as Shiro, but it’s hard to have sympathy for a character who lets himself be pushed around by others all the time, and who is finally killed by an old woman.
The scenes of gory punishment are pretty gross, even if the blood is obviously red paint, and I can imagine it was pretty shocking in its time. The sets are dark and cramped, quite Hellish. The music is similar to Kabuki or Noh music, with lots of traditional instruments and quavery female singers warbling lyrics about destiny and the cycle of life. It lends even more weight to the idea that you’re watching an elaborate play and not a film.
Gorehounds won’t come away from Jigoku satisfied, but if you’re into long discussions about sin and redemption and the nature of good and evil, you’ll find some ideas to worry at in this movie. Overall, the film doesn’t quite work, but it’s obviously influenced many movies since its release.
Recommend-o-meter: A must for scholars of Japanese cinema and philosophers or theologians; the rest of us can take it or leave it.
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