ART401A: APPRECIATING FAR-EASTERN CINEMA

Instructor: Dr. Ritwij Bhowmik

Summer Course 2016

1st WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT

FILM NAME: KYUA (CURE)

STUDENT INFORMATION

Roll No.: 13762

Name: Vaibhav Vaidya

Department: Chemical Engg. E-mail: vvaibhav@iitk.ac.in

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Movie Details:

Title: Kyua (Cure)

Director/Writer: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Release year: 1997
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese

Introduction:
Cure is one of the most notable film of the J-Horror genre. Directed and written by
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the movies ability to unsettle the viewer is second to none. The movie
used the emptiness in life of the Japanese people during the 1997 financial crisis to show a
grief-stricken life of the characters and thus creating an everlasting impression.
The film excels at tension-building and psychological tragedies using very simple situations
and sets a landmark for future films in this genre.

Characters and Cast:

Mr. Takabe (detective) played by Koji Yakusho

Mamiya played by Masato Hagiwara
Sakuma (psychiatrist) played by Tsuyoshi Ujiki
Takabes wife played by Anna Nakagawa

Historical Context:
The early 1990s saw the collapse of the economic price bubble in Japan. Which is referred as
The Lost Decade. In 1991-2000 the country experienced a stagnant price level and the
Japanese economy collapsed drastically. During this time, many people lost their jobs, many
film studios went bankrupt.
During this period many filmmakers tried to depict and capture this economic depression in
their own way. The director in this movie has shown multiple instances which represent the
dejected lives of Japanese people. The movie shows various scenes where there are empty
streets, condemned and cursed buildings, middle-class people being haunted by ghosts.
Using these depictions the film effectively portrays the psychological horror which people
were facing those days.

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Scene:1

Scene:2

Director Profile:
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, born in Kobe in 1955, graduated from Rikkyo
University, Tokyo where he started to make 8mm films. He made
his feature film debut with the pink film, The Kandagawa Wars, in
1983.Kurosawa achieved his first international acclaim from 1997
release of Cure a stylistically vigorous thriller.
Kurosawas films occupy a peculiar position between the materials
of mass genre and on the other hand, esoteric and intellectual
abstraction. Hollow spaces, light in opposition to realism, the
oddness of the characters, the wonderful landscapes and the
momentary scraping of the shot are the main motifs which can be seen in many of his films.

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Genre:
The film belongs to the Japanese Horror genre commonly known as J-Horror. The origin of Jhorror can be tracked back to ghost story classics of Edo period and the Meiji Period
referred to as the Kaidan. Several elements have been adopted into the modern stories.
Japanese horror focuses on psychological horror and tension building.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa in his article What is Horror Cinema? has described the term true horror
as something which forces a lot of trouble to get away and stays in your mind for a long
time. Horror films are tasked to create a sense of fear and thrill in the minds of the viewers
which can only be done if the films can dominate their minds. He thus gives the generic
name Horror films to that family of films that take their subject matter the fear that
follows one throughout ones lifetime.

Plot of the film:

A series of bodies are found with the letter X carved on their neck. Detective Takabe, starts
to uncover these murders. The perpetrators are easily caught but they never seem to
remember as to why they did it. Mr. Takabe and Mr. Sakuma encounters Mamiya, an
amnesiac who cannot even remember things that happened seconds earlier. His constant
refrain who are you? is directed both at the characters and the audience watching it.
Mr. Takabe starts to act crazily and angrily every time he looks at it on a victim. He is shown
throwing anger seizures many times, often on Mamiya, the prime suspect of the movie.
Later Mr. Takabe discovers the early life of Mamiya and his horrifying secrets, which is
influenced by Mesmers writings. The final scenes of the movie show a waitress drawing out
a knife after talking to Mr. Takabe suggesting a transmission of hypnotism has occurred
from Mamiya to Takabe.

Critical analysis:

In the beginning of the film, on the crime scene of the first murder, Police with Mr
Takabe are shown investigating. In this scene the director has shown the inhumanity of
the modern world by depicting that the Police is not at all concerned about the victim.
Moreover they think that such a thing was bound to happen to a prostitute.
In all the crime scenes the police find no difficulty in capturing the murderer as there is
no effort made by him/her to hide his/her crime. The director uses these part of the
story to communicate a sense of shock to the audience.
There are various scenes in which Mamiya is shown in darkness while the other person
on the screen is shown in light symbolising his state of mind, his lack of knowledge about
himself and his surroundings. In the first scene he is shown with the person who rescues
him from the beach and in the second scene he is shown with the policeman.

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Scene:3

Scene:4

Following the Scene:3, he is shown to be sitting in light when the person tells him his
name and tries to ask more about him, signifying the enlightenment of his mind.
Mamiya, rather than answering questions about himself starts to ask the person about
him and in the process succeeds in drawing out the murderous intent in him.

Scene:5

The director has shown the recession in Japan, the grief of the unemployed people and
the bankrupt companies in various scenes. He depicted the city which was all glittery
once as grey. The faded colours of the buildings, the absence of the big shiny banners,
abandoned streets. All this showed the transition of the Japan from growing 1950s
Japan to 1990s broken Japan.

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Scene:6&7

The empty running washing machine symbolizes the emptiness in the life of Mr Takabes
wife, she often switched on the machine when she was at home, because it gave her a
sense of completeness. Mr. Takabe realizes that he is not able to give time to his wife
which shows how monotonous and hard life Japanese people were living during those
days. They could not take holidays as they feared that they will lose their jobs. So he
decides to go out on a vacation with his wife after the case is over.

Scene:8

The director in the movie also gives a take on gender discrimination in Japanese society.
When the doctor asks a patient to take his pants off and lie down, he gets shocked by
her statement and considers her a prostitute. Later Mamiya hypnotises her by reminding
her of all the discrimination she had faced.

Scene:9

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In a scene, Mamiya at a Police Box is shown through a cracked, foggy glass window. The
director here wants to portray Mamiya as a mysterious character. We do not know
much about this character and looking him through a cracked window the director
succeeds in making us more curious about the character.

Scene:10

In all the killing scenes, killing happens by extreme simplicity. The genius of the director
here is that the killing takes place with such subtlety and calmness and we as a viewer
are observing the scene feel normal about it. So in a way we are also a partner in
murderers crime. As the killing takes place, the camera is motionless and still unlike the
norm where it shakes as something terrible has happened. Mr. Kurosawa with this scene
wanted to show the inhumane nature of the modern society.

Scene:11&12

During the interrogation of the Oida the Policeman, Oidas back, while Takabe is facing
the viewer directly. Oida being faced back, is a mystery and his intentions are not clear
to the viewer. Whereas the questions which are being thrown by Takabe is on both Oida

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and the viewer. Mr. Sakuma is shown as a calm person whereas the frustrated law and
order of the country represented by Takabe is using violence to force Oida.

Scene:12

The next scene is a speciality of the director. Takabe is shown under both light and dark
signifying both his stages of awareness. All this represents the state of oblivion Takabes
is in. The character switches between light and darkness which is symbolic of the
alternate states of unawareness and consciousness that Mr. Takabe juggles between.

Scene:13&14

Takabe reaches Mamiyas house where he gets to know what exactly was going on. He
finds a pet monkey, tied up and starved to death, and envisions his wife hanging from a
rope. He gets this vision because, he realises that his wife was nothing but a pet to
Takabe, and thus he discovers the similarities between the monkey and his wife.
Mr. Sakuma also falls to the hypnotism of Mamiya and gets hypnotised by him, along
with Mr Takabe. Mr. Sakuma being a trained psychiatrist knew that hypnotism draws
out the malicious intent inside ones mind and thus commits suicide, because he could
not control himself any longer so rather than killing someone else he kills himself.

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The house shown below is very important to the story as it represents a dream mutually
shared by Takabe, Sakuma and Mamiya. Sakuma did not enter the house but Takabe
was brave and overcomes his fears to do so. He goes in there and kills Mamiya. It is very
aptly represented in this scene that Takabe was slowly taking the place of Mamiya, that
the transmission of Gospel from Mamiya to Takabe was completed.

Scene:15

Conclusion:
Kiyoshi Kurosawa has set a benchmark for all the future J-horrors by depicting the
psychological shocks with such ease that it leaves a long lasting impression on the audience.
He concludes this movies very beautifully and artistically. In the end Mr Takabe is shown as
a completely different man. The warmth and calm of his face is merry and scary at the same
time. But he somehow hypnotises the waitress and she picks up the knife and goes for her
kill. The ending scene also showcases a rising sun which represents that the curse hasnt
gone even though Mamiya is dead, his place has been taken by Mr Takabe. The climax of
the scene mocks the tough and deadly life that we all people are living, with so much hatred
in our hearts, that once instigated by some Mamiya or Takabe, we wont think twice to even
murder someone. The movie in true sense is a reflection of our society with many hidden
references to it.

Scene:16

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References:

Bhowmik, Ritwij. "Japan Segment: Cure (1997)." Appreciating Far-Eastern Cinema. IIT
Kanpur. Kanpur, May 2016. Lecture.

Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cure_(film). n.d. Internet. 6 June 2016.

Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyoshi_Kurosawa. n.d. Internet. 6 June 2016.

Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan). n.d. Internet. 6 June 2016.

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