At first glance, the dual restoration/release of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1998 film “Serpent’s Path,” alongside the first true screening of his 2024 short film “Chime,” might seem a little too niche. The two films are relatively obscure compared to Kurosawa’s storied oeuvre, and while they might not match the chilling heights of the director’s best work, like “Pulse,” this dual release by Janus Films is also for more than just completists. Instead, these films showcase the auteur at two ends of his career, connected by both restless experimentation and a probing interest in the alienation of modern existence.
“Serpent’s Path” is a gnarly low-budget palate cleanser after his 1997 international breakthrough “Cure.” Shot over the course of two weeks alongside another film, “Eyes of the Spider,” it’s a nihilistic portrait of a father grieving the death of his daughter and exacting revenge on those responsible with the help of his friend. The second, “Chime,” is a 45-minute plunge into the abyss of city soundscapes and the way modern culture isolates us from friends and family, literalized by a striking chime that drives a culinary teacher and his students insane. Released originally as an NFT (remember those?), It’s a small miracle that the film has finally escaped the horrors of blockchain and crypto.
While the age and budgetary constraints of “Serpent’s Path” are always present — so much so that Kurosawa remade the film in 2024 — it’s still a pretty harrowing trip into the psychology of revenge. We start the film alongside Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa), a low-level Yakuza whose daughter was kidnapped and murdered, who enlists his teacher friend Njima (Show Aikawa) to track down those responsible, tying them up and making them watch home videos of the daughter. As they torture various yakuza, they realize that the murder goes up the chain of command, forcing them to go on more dangerous missions to find the man responsible. Like films of this kind, the revenge plays out brutally as we slowly witness Miyashita lose his humanity.
The inverse is true for “Chime,” a polished film that showcases Kurosawa at his formalist best. It begins with an extended scene of Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka) teaching his culinary class, only for one socially awkward student, Tashiro (Seiichi Kohinata), to start to lose it, claiming that a computer has replaced half his brain. While the setup initially suggests a type of viral horror that spreads from person to person, this short isn’t “Ringu.” Less concerned with jump scares or even explaining the mechanics behind the titular chime, Kurosawa is really interested in the drudgery of routine and modern life. The repeating sound of Matsuoka’s wife dumping and sorting through cans for recycling at home is just as screeching and horrifying as whatever Tashiro is hearing in his head. When Matsuoka starts to lose it himself, it’s an open question whether the reason is supernatural or just the natural extension of a crushing life of unrealized dreams.
That both films and their protagonists are forced to look back at their lives and choices, just as they are pushed to the edge towards brutal violence, is anything but a coincidence; it is a common motif that recurs throughout Kurosawa’s work. Whether it’s how a man’s will curdles in the face of unbearable tragedy or the pressures of modern existence, “Serpent’s Path” and “Chime” showcase normalcy pushed to its extreme. What, at first glance, might feel like directorial curios, becomes two central links in a career that constantly pushed the envelope between horror and cultural critique, way before it was fashionable. [A/A-]
