The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, June 1-7
Ringu (1998)
Directed by Hideo Nakata
Today, Ringu can’t help but seem rather quaint in its focus on the harmful physical and psychological effects of a blurry VHS tape. But perhaps the dated nature of the particulars of its source of horror is a blessing, allowing the film to be appreciated beyond the novelty of its “watch a video, die seven days afterward” premise. Nakata’s skillful ways of building slow-burn tension and intrigue—with Yoshiya Obara’s sound design and the screechy strings of Kenji Kawai’s score especially contributing to its creepy atmosphere—are certainly easy to applaud. But as with the best horror films, there is also a trove of subtext to unpack. The fatal video is itself a stream of surreal imagery that plays like an avant-garde splattering of someone’s consciousness; TV reporter Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) and ex-husband Ryuji Takayama’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) efforts to dissect the meaning of these images infuse the film with a meta-cinematic flavor. There’s even deeper personal subtext to the evil at the heart of Ringu, however, with Reiko’s relative neglect of her son Koichi (Katsumi Muramatsu) in favor of her professional career finding something of a parallel in psychic Shizuko Yamamura’s (Masako) murder of his out-of-control daughter Sadako (Rie Ino’o), the videotape’s creator. Consider Sadako’s psionic video, then, her beyond-the-grave way of finally gaining the attention she never received in her short life—by spreading it like a virus to the widest possible audience. Kenji Fujishima (June 6, 7pm at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, followed by a conversation with author Lydia Millet)