Pulse ("Kairo")

TIFF [2001]

(Japan, 2001, 118 minutes)
Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Cast: Haruhiko Kato, Kumiko Aso, Koyuki, Kurume Arisaka, Masatoshi Matsuo

Movie Review

For the past four years, the coming of the TIFF has become synonymous with the arrival of a new thriller from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who has brought a fresh new voice to the horror genre since the mid-80s, but whose distinctive films remain sadly unknown beyond his native Japan.

With his 1998 shocker "Cure" currently receiving positive notices in its limited US run and last year's "Seance" ("Korei") featured in a recent "Fangoria", Kurosawa is perhaps at last on the verge of discovery ala contemporary Takeshi "Beat" Kitano. His new thriller, "Pulse" ("Kairo") , could well prove to be Kurosawa's international breakthrough, as it is less esoteric than his previous works, and is superficially a teen horror yarn (ala Japan's popular "Ring" series), in which a deadly spectral menace is borne of the Internet.

When a missing computer hacker is found dead, his young friends explore his apartment and find an odd black splotch on the wall. Analyzing the contents of mysterious floppy disk for clues as to the reason for his suicide, the group unknowingly unleash a virus in which real-time webcam feeds are transmitted to various PCs, even when those same systems aren't equipped for the 'net, or even...on. These disturbing signals are full of solitary shadow figures and pixilated movement, as if being observed from a strange realm meant to resemble our world but losing much in the translation. The teens discover that these digital beings are, in fact, ghosts, but the residues of the solitary living whom exist in a form of living death anyhow as they communicate with other lonely "ghosts" at their desks and terminals. One character likens the afterlife to a hard disc--what happens when it runs out of space? Through a leak, the spirits are finding their way back. After encounters with phantoms and disembodied messages in dark, taped-up rooms and abandoned factories, only a few of the ensemble survive as the spirit world empties into Japan with apocalyptic consequences.

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Sure, the plot sounds like a rejected "9-76-Evil" sequel, but since this IS a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film and not the latest DTV-schlocker from Fred Olen Ray, what results from this pulpy conceit is another supernatural meditation so understated that it's almost "ambient", even as the world is ending.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa once again avoids an overuse of FX (although some of the CGI phantoms and brief images of climactic doom are state-of-the-art) and utilizes the Expressionistic tools of cinematography, lighting, editing and sound (and the lack of it) to create a truly unnerving atmosphere of relentless dread. And while the theme suggests a certain knee-jerk technophobia, Kurosawa's concern here is not so much to demonize a tool, but rather, how this current gadget illuminates an already existing climate of solitude and and loneliness (the director insisted during his Q&A that this conceit is not especially specifically Japanese, but rather, what's scary to all cultures). His definition of the Apocalypse isn't so much the destruction of cities, so much as it the Hell of having to live in a dehumanized, isolated void.

As scary as "The Others", as accessible as "Scream", "Pulse" reveals that the horror film can still be vital and profound, even if marred -- somewhat -- by a cheesy end-title pop song.

- Robert L

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