Kiyoshi Kurosawa knows how to make a ghost an eerie presence within a frame. Simple and effective in design. A blur where a face should be. An identifying colour in their clothing. Something that registers the eye eventually as they emerge from a shadow or appear in the visual dimension. They don’t seem aggressive in his television film, Séance (2000). They sit. They stand. They approach. They don’t vomit black bile or crawl from a TV set. Yet they linger on the edge of a frame, the edge of a character’s perception. The true horror being how they reflect back guilt and sadness and loss.
For Séance, Kurosawa adapted the novel Séance On A Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane; I’ve neither read that, nor seen the 1960s British movie. Junko (Jun Fubuki) can see the dead. She works part-time as a psychic, offering solace to people who seek her out. Though she can’t communicate the dread felt when in the presence of an actual ghost. Her husband, Koji (Koji Yakusho from Cure and Retribution) is a sound technician for a studio. Their married life is humdrum yet they seem united. When the kidnapping of a young girl from a wealthy family intersects with Junko’s professional connection with a young graduate student interested in psychic phenomenon, a series of events transpires, both of bad luck and bad decisions. A crime plot – similar to a Coen brothers neo-noir in a way – emerges where the seemingly mild-mannered Junko shows her true frustrations with her “boring” life. This aspect of Séance, how the crime and the ghost reveal the unhappiness felt in their marriage, makes for the sense of depth and sadness to the film, carried by the grounded performances of Fubuki and Yakusho.
A low budget production shot for television is a quality supernatural drama with Kurosawa’s talent for unsettling mood and moments in clear evidence. In contrast to the bigger investigative procedurals like Cure or Retribution, Séance might not be as scary or as satisfying a narrative. Yet it still unfolds deliberately and engagingly, producing haunting sequences across a few key locations. Great to see another Kurosawa regular, Show Aikawa, in a supporting role as a Shinto priest. Watched a copy uploaded to YouTube. Recommended.
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