Onibaba

oh, this was truly mesmerising. beautiful, so sensual - even the grass waving in the wind somehow moved lustfully. i love a black and white horror film, so eerie. the whole premise of this film was really incredible too: an elderly woman suffers from loneliness, poverty and grief in a war-stricken world. when her son dies, and her daughter-in-law quickly erupts into an intense affair with their neighbour, the woman descends into jealousy and obsession.  and it’s a wonderful study of that. the samurai disturbing her in the night m, the hole where they keep the bodies, the mask itself. the imagery of her standing in a field wearing the mask was genuinely one of the most terrifying scenes i’ve seen in a film. a really powerful scene too was her embracing the tree after seeing her daughter-in-law having sex with hachi, even her asking hachi to make love to her telling him that she’s not as old ‘inside’ as she looks ‘outside’ - i thought this was really good representation for the sexual repression and dissatisfaction that older women experience that’s completely overlooked.  a beautiful film. the mask not coming off too, her almost becoming a demon itself. just beautiful. going to be thinking about this film for so long 🖤