Pulse

"ghosts won't kill people... because that would just make more ghosts. isn't that right? instead, they'll try to make people immortal by quietly trapping them in their own loneliness.” absolutely boggles my mind that this was made 20 years before we're all going to the world's fair but also serial experiments lain was made 3 years before this so clearly japan was on a different wavelength. this one of the most subtly beautiful films ever. i think the first time i watched it was on tubi, and the low resolution did kinda enhance the internet horror vibe, but watching it on blu ray made me fall in love with the colors and the darkness. nothing is scarier than a face so covered in darkness you can't tell if there's actually a face there or if you're imagining it. the film also disarms the viewer with sound by constantly playing an electric hum just to cut it out when one of the characters comes face to face with a ghost. silence is just as scary as darkness. this film made me think a lot about the term "shadow" that was used a lot to refer to people at amherst that didn't really go outside. it just made me realize how poetic that was. i think with the normalization of rotting and "protecting your peace" and becoming addicted to the internet's simulated socializing, being a mere shadow in other people's lives is almost seen as desirable. why deal with messy people when you can isolate yourself in an echo chamber with thousands of people that think exactly like you? this sentiment is expressed by the boss when michi asks if she should check in on a friend that has disappeared: "words said in friendship with the best of intentions always wind up hurting your friends and then you wind up getting hurt. is friendship always that way? if that's so, what's left? if i were you, who needs friends like that? a courageous choice in itself." it's misanthropy presented as empowering and the result is that we all become ghosts to each other .