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Review
by RainDog: |
Taking place
in modern Tokyo, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse (Kairo)
starts very small. A young woman from a plant nursery goes
to pick up a computer disk from a colleague who hasn't been
heard from for a number of days. She finds him home alone,
and the two talk briefly before the man goes into another
room and performs a sudden and almost disinterested suicide.
From this point the film deals with the mysterious goings
on, from random suicides and disappearances, computers that
ask, "Would you like to meet a ghost?" to a number
of red-tape sealed "Forbidden Rooms," in a persistent
bad dream for the characters. There is a very clear story
here, though the story ultimately seems less important than
the emotions Kurosawa slowly coaxes out of the viewer.
Starring a cast of largely unknown
actors who excellently underplay their parts, Pulse
is a natural extension of Kurosawa's 1997's Cure
(Kyua), about a series of unmotivated (and seemingly
unstoppable) murders, and 1999's Charisma (Karisuma).
Kurosawa's world in these films is one of coldness and isolation,
but never unnaturally so. It's so natural that when a computer
assisted sequence appears near the end of Pulse,
it's almost jarring. If Cure was the story of doom
on a personal scale, and Charisma a step above that,
then Pulse is the coda, the story of a quiet apocalypse.
The cool oppressiveness of Pulse
doesn't really jar the viewer with a few well crafted scenes,
but with an effective soundtrack (minus a horrible end credit
pop song), a persistently dark color palette, and a single-minded
seriousness that never blinks. By the time it's hooked the
viewer, scenes that might normally seem innocent or staged
take on an edge of menacing coldness. Even something as
simple as shots of the characters riding a bus, each the
only passenger with the muted backdrop of highway supports
passing out-of-focus through the bus windows, adds to the
feeling that the world isn't a comforting place. One of
the scariest moments in the film involves a stark gray room
and the sudden appearance of an unarmed and not very intimidating
woman who, by simply walking, manages to evoke far more
raw chills than Jason Voorhees in his hockey mask with a
bloody machete.
Much of Pulse is spent with
the implication that something horrible is going on, and
even worse, that there's absolutely nothing the characters
can do to stop it from happening, even after they figure
out what's what. The camera itself is like an uncaring spectator,
at times unmoving or slowly turning to follow the action.
This is not a movie done in two-cuts-a-second, and probably
wouldn't be a fun movie to show at a party with drinking
involved. I'm pretty sure there's not a single joke in the
entire movie and while there are quite a few deaths, many
of them occur offscreen or with a bloodless dispassion.
Pulse features a beautiful
story and direction, and possesses an art film quality with
a strong message about increasing isolation (from ourselves,
our society, and our values) and about loneliness in general.
However, I'll also say that this is gripping stuff and
because of its expertly managed atmosphere never
boring. I enjoyed Wes Craven's Scream because I was
in the mood for a clever, fun movie. I enjoyed Pulse
because it was a smart, creepy movie that I was still thinking
about long after the film ended. (RainDog 2002)
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