Page 202 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

New Terrors, Emerging Trends 189

(1984). Throughout Marebito, Shimizu and the film’s screenwriter,
Konaka Chiaki, have characters discuss a plethora of all encompassing
explanations for inexplicable phenomena – from ‘hollow Earth’ theories
to the potential existence of a ‘universal unconscious’ – only to conflate
(and, thus, possibly equate) them so that a multiplicity of absolute
rationalisations are acknowledged as possibilities even as the text elides
the emergence of a ‘superior’ or ‘absolute’ explanation. This gesture
towards irreducibility and interstitiality is further evidenced in the scene
in which Masuoka, having entered the ‘passageway of terror’ and
descended into the ‘underground’ tunnels for the first time, passes the
rubble-strewn remains of a long buried building with a dented metal door.
Partially illuminating his surroundings with the small light fixed atop his
digital video camera, Masuoka comments: ‘The underground
development was a reminder of the second world war. This must be one
such war time memorabilia.’ Moments later, however, Masuoka adds:
‘The underground development of Tokyo was not just from the second
world war. It must have been done throughout history, connecting new
tunnels to old ones.’ Following closely upon Masuoka’s assertion that the
‘fear of the unknown compel(led)’ him to investigate this netherworld in
the first place, the reference to the second world war as a contributor to
the subterranean tunnels’ construction, coupled with Masuoka’s
subsequent remarks designed to lessen the correlation between the hellish
labyrinth and a specific historical period, locates horror both as an
emotional state and as a film genre that resists simple elucidation.
As the Escher print gracing the wall behind Masuoka’s work
station implies, nothing is as straight-forward as it may seem, no matter
what stories we tell ourselves to momentarily stabilise our position in a
universe that remains well beyond the human mind’s capacity for
understanding. Determinism in its myriad forms (biological, social, etc.)
may provide ‘answers’, but when it comes to comprehending intense
ecstatic physiological and psychological states like fear or mortal terror,
these solutions pale in the shadows of infinite alternatives. Consequently,
although references to World War II as contributing to contemporary
Japanese horror cinema’s iconography may be appropriate at times, by no
means are such works reducible to this single easy reading. Japanese