Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan
Details
This month we will do something a little different with our film event. Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan is an anthology horror film...but don't let that fool you--the stories are closer to scary folk tales than anything you'd see in American horror films. As surreal and haunting as it is beautiful, this 60's gem is a great way to experience Japanese folklore.
The stories in the film were all collected in several volumes of books by Lafcadio Hearn , a Greek-British man who moved to Japan and became a naturalized citizen in the late 1800s. He found some of the stories in old Japanese books (the Yaso-Kidan, Bukkyo-Hyakkwa-Zensho, Kokon-Chomonshu, Tama-Sudare, and Hyaku-Monogatari), while others were told to him by people he met. You can read the stories featured in the film here:
https://encorepreneurcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Japanese-Folk-Stories-Kwaidan.pdf
Because of the length of this film, we will forgo our typical after-film discussion.
Schedule:
5:30pm arrive and find a seat
5:40pm brief words from Erin and Masaki
5:45pm film starts. This is a 3-hour movie. There will be a brief intermission between parts 2 and 3.
9:00pm film is finished