It seems to be a common belief within a community of opening weekend movie-goers that art films -- or films with the flashings of avant garde -- are slow-moving, laborious and boastful knick-knacks. Like the abstractions of Jackson Pollock, arthouse productions carry with them the stigma that only a segregated group of critics and artists are going to watch and care about them, to say nothing about writing essays about the emotional nucleus and visual narratives within the film. An art film often relies less on the sediments of acknowledged storytelling, electing to deconstruct those traditional elements and in the process, alienating those who are not predisposed to the filmmaker's aesthetic intentions. Without the focusing lens of artistic understanding, viewing an art film can be the most labyrinthine filmic processes a person can endure.
Although I'm a little more predisposed to watching these films, the business of entering into that attitude is often just as difficult. Although I enjoy recognizing and comprehending art in cinema (especially when it isn't pointed out to me by the filmmaker), often I need to empty my mind afterwards with some kind of thoughtless diversion, if only to feel my feet firmly on the ground again. Art can be beautiful, ugly, and all points in between...but perceiving it correctly in its most complete form can drain your senses, well, senseless.
And so it goes that a few hours ago, I entered into watching House, Nobuhiko Obayashi's utterly demented 1977 haunted house film, which was recently distributed on DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection. I loved the way the Criterion writers described House: "An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava." As open-ended a statement as that is, it's about as close of a coherent explanation as you're likely read about a film which, to my mind, is nearly indescribable. It is complete, unvarnished "arthouse" cinema that manages to avoid those previously mentioned failings.
To briefly describe House: Seven high school-aged girls (with names like Precious, Kung Fu, Fantasy, Melody, Sweetie, etc.) take off for summer vacation to a home in the country, where Precious' love-sick Aunt lives. Throughout the movie each of them slowly turn up missing, and the surviving girls uncover the macabre secret that the actual house is (spoiler alert) literally eating them. I cannot disclose any more plot points about the film because, and I write this in all sincerity, that simply IS the plot. And with a feeble 88 minute run time, you may anticipate a film so uncomplicated getting tedious and monotonous very quickly. But House is not JUST a movie about school girls surviving inside a haunted house. No sir, no ma'am. House is a near extra sensory experience that left me whirling like a dervish. Love it or hate it, House is a film that is not to simply be watched, but absorbed and experienced with nearly every sense rattled to the bone.
Obayashi, known throughout Japan as an expert and proficient television commercial director, had desired to make a film, and after seeing Steven Speilberg's Jaws, aspired to make something even more compelling. From his adolescent daughter he repurposed stories about what made her scared or frightened: Mirrors that do not reflect what is intended; A piano whose keys stuck together and could pinch the skin off of fingers; Towering grandfather clocks whose rusty, metallic gears slowly gyrate into infinity. They were simple fragments of horror to a child, but Obayashi gambled that a horror movie-going audience who had previously seen just about every other act of terror on screen, would react strongly to the nightmarish fables of a child's imagination. Indeed, he gambled not only his own reputation, but the credibility of one of Japan's largest and most respected film studios.
Essentially the film takes an exhausted genre staple, the haunted house, and quite literally turns it inside out. House contains images, camera movements, music cues, and special effects that I have never seen in a movie before. As members of the audience, we watch as a piano EATS young Melody, her body flailing within its wires. We watch, captivated as one of the girls grasps in her hands the giggling head of Mac, just before she vomits blood all over her. During one decidedly harrowing scene, Gorgeous preens in front of a vanity mirror. The image that is reflected however shows Gorgeous with vampire fangs. Eventually Gorgeous' face and body melt away, leaving only an outline of her body enveloped in flames.
House's special effects were realized not necessarily by trick photography or outrageous make up effects; rather, Obayashi decided to garner his film with animated effects, frenetic editing, and eccentric music cues. It all rushes up to the screen so furiously that I don't think we're intended to digest it all at once, but simply bask in the malevolent insanity of it all. Several scenes can be viewed as either funny or horrible to the audience, depending on their reactions, and nobody would be incorrect in their analysis. House is just that kind of film, otherworldly and set completely off to itself, even though its final message of a love that never dies is totally universal. With a conundrum this bewildering, it's amazing that I've summoned the words to write anything coherent at all. But that is also the legacy of House and why I believe it to be a genuine art film that's easily assimilated by the masses: It's a haunted house story, told in a way that even a child could understand.
With the recent home video release of House, there are probably scores of reviews posted on the Net, but I doubt if any of them will sufficiently characterize its raw intensity and unconventional effects. I really hate to adopt the old "you gotta see it to believe it" chestnut, but that's what it all boils down to. House is a film that I can see myself returning to, hopefully very soon.
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