Customer Reviews

Marebito

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

On one level, which isn't revealed until nearly the end, you can interpret Marebito as a relatively simple film about a man, Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto), who has had a psychotic break and commits an outrageous, though relatively contained, series of crimes. Just that story, if it were told transparently, would be enough to hold your interest--as it is so twisted and disturbing.

But director Takashi Shimizu, best known for his Juon/Grudge series, typically doesn't want to just relay a simple story. In Marebito, there are deep layers of allusion, metaphor and partially symbolic/partially literal content. In addition to the psychotic madman stuff, at various times the film has elements of, or can be read as, a meditation on obsession, technological (especially video) fetishism, or voyeurism; a skeptical exploration of the attraction of horror and horror as entertainment (the protagonist can't quite grasp the attraction, but sees it in others, and wants to understand and experience it); a Dantean descent into Hell; a ghost story; a vampire story (both literal and psychological); and even a kind of love story with an extremely deviant eroticism. I'm probably forgetting to mention some possibilities, and I probably overlooked others, but that gives you an idea of the complexity of Marebito.

Reading the above, it might sound like the film should be a mess. It would be difficult for most writers and directors to fuse so many different elements together into a cohesive whole. But Shimizu and screenwriter Chiaki Konaka, who also wrote the novel that Marebito is based on, achieve a remarkably natural, ever-shifting flow. The way a viewer contextualizes Marebito will likely continually change all the way to the end of the film, but the shifts are all as slight and smooth, and have all of the mind-bending illusory qualities as well as the interlocking aspects of the typical kinds of M.C. Escher prints.

Shimizu is able to very quickly instantiate a palpable, atmospheric creepiness. There's a very disturbing, somewhat graphic death early in the film, which Masuoka quickly responds to obsessively, and at the same time, we explore voyeurism in other ways, one that's met with the appearance of an eerie, ghostly figure in a neighboring apartment building. The Dantean descent happens not long after, and Marebito takes a dark, fantastical turn. By that time, I was completely engrossed in the film. Shimizu doesn't remain in fantasy territory too long, but the film grows increasingly disturbing--from the images, not so much because of gore, although there is plenty of blood in Marebito, but moreso because of the context and the accompanying, very twisted eroticism. What seems to be really going on will ruffle more than a few ethical feathers of many viewers, and that material will not resolve in a manner they'd expect. At the same time, Shimizu doesn't ever completely abandon the more fantastical material, and to the end, he leaves the film fairly open to a number of alternate interpretations.

Not only for fans of Japanese horror films, Marebito is a "must see" film for anyone who can stomach the disturbing and who is not easily offended. It will reward repeated viewings and contemplation, as you can conceptually peel it like a resonant onion that has no distinct center. This may be Shimizu's best film yet, and I loved a couple of the Ju-On films. Now I just need to track down an English translation of the novel.

"Marebito" is, on the surface, a relatively straightforward example of the ever expanding world of Japanese horror. "Straightforward," however, may not be the first thing that springs to mind for a casual viewer. While the "story" of "Marebito" seems rather simplistic with atmosphere and mood supplanting narrative momentum, its themes suggest a myriad of different influences and interpretations. The film, by Takashi Shimizu ("Ju-on," "The Grudge"), is thematically an "everything but the kitchen sink" amalgamation of styles and dramatic allusions. The film references myths, the supernatural, vampirism, voyeurism, life after death, obsession, the nature of reality, and the descent into madness. By tackling, and co-mingling, so many different concepts--"Marebito" becomes an interesting and unique film that flirts structurally with being completely convoluted. There you have it, I've called this film "simple" and "convoluted" in the same paragraph--but that's the mixed message the film conveys and the mixed feelings I was left with after viewing this movie.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy "Marebito" and admire its ambition, I just don't think it's wholly successful. The story, itself, is fairly sparse. A videographer witnesses and films a bizarre suicide while working with a local news station. He becomes obsessed with understanding the fear that would drive someone to such an action. Feeling emotionally muted, and wanting to know more about terror and even death, he takes a strange journey beneath the city to try and uncover the source of the man's horror. He has several (real or imagined) ethereal encounters on this journey, but ultimately finds a young woman being held captive. Taking her home with him, he discovers she is not what she may seem. I don't want to divulge more of what transpires (although others have) because the film's surprises work better if they unfold within the context of watching the story.

The film is unconventional in several other ways. Much of what we view is seen through the videographer's camera. It seems to be that "reality" for this character is what he can capture through a lens. That effect is maximized on several occasions by an interesting visual trickery. Sometimes the people and images seen in passing are blurred or flickering, and only through the camera are they fully realized. This reinforces the film's interest in both voyeurism and the "what is reality" debate. Much of the film also lacks regular dialogue--I'd say 90% of the screenplay is the internal monologue of the central character (which helps to flesh out both his obsession and his possible madness).

I admired much of "Marebito," but it does have a very deliberate pace. As a shorter film (and it's only 90 minutes), I think the concepts could have been more refined and a tremendous film might have been lurking inside. It is very effective at setting a mood, though, the creepiness and unease is genuine and involving. But with so many themes struggling in the subtext, the picture loses some of its impact. Some late revelations in the film are intriguing--but because you never know what's true or not, it just adds another plot strand that may or may not be significant. Maybe Shimizu wanted a film that was left open to different interpretations--and, in that, he succeeded. But for me, it was too much--too many possibilities, not enough answers. Ultimately, I'd rate "Marebito" at 3 1/2 stars--but after being genuinely fascinated by the first half, I was a bit let down. KGHarris, 02/07.

This is a very cool and weird movie. Everybody has already written what this movie is about so I wont explain its plot. Instead, im going to contribute my interpretation of it.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!! READ THIS ONLY WHEN YOU FINISHED WATCHING THIS MOVIE. Im going to explain this in parts, so read along......

Ok, this cameraman is a lonely individual that wants to experience fear, absolute terror, but cant do it by the "normal means", so he seeks terror in uncommon places, like suicide attempts and filming people. He uses Prozac to help his medical condition, and when he throws it in the garbage at the beginning of the movie, he starts seeing and hearing things that are not there, like the conversation in the underground with the suicidal man ghost, or the Deros. Also, this is why he doesn't remember his ex wife.

Everything the camera films is real, because film cant lie, so I assume that the underground is real, as we can see this underground filmed. Also, the vampire girl is real, because she is filmed also, fangs an all. At the end of the movie, you can see that the cameras are still filming his descent into the underground, so this weird world of downstairs is real also. The ghosts or the Deros are not filmed, so they are only in the insane mind of the protagonist. There's a line in the movie where he says that everything is more real when he films it, and also we only see the faces of other people he is looking at correctly through his camera lenses, because they are real to him only through the camera lenses. All this supports this theory too. He even says when he sees this weird snuff film at the beginning of the film, that he will become a psychopath to really experience terror. This explains his later killings.

This person and his ex wife had a children, information that is not in the movie, and this child maybe was killed or got lost, and this led this couple to their respective insanities and separation. This is not explained at all, but it helps understand the plot, so play along. The cameraman doesn't recognize his ex wife until he already killed her, and in his little moments of lucidity we see that he understands the situation that he is in, and that he is becoming a bad person everyday, but stills doesn't experience absolute terror. Also, we see that he is not satisfied with the terror showing on the face of his victims when he kills them, so he thinks that what he needs is something else to really get where he wants.

At the same time, he meets this "Vampire Girl", who is very real, and he mistakes her for his lost daughter. That's why he gets her things, food and takes care of her. He sees her as a redemption option, but the kid is out of this world, and will only lead him to his death. He even gets her animal and human blood to drink, ignoring the weirdness of this situation, thinking that is normal. The kid even got lost, when the lunatic mother, his ex wife, enters his apartment and makes a mess looking for her missing daughter. That's why everything is messy and that's why she knows that he has somebody living in his apartment. But she returns, to still live with his protector.

At the end of the movie, we see in him another moment of lucidity, where the cameraman says that he has tried everything to get terrified, killings and all, but nothing helped him, so he will reorganize his life, and forgets about the creature. But his insane mind is still at work, and he starts hallucinating again, seeing Deros in the city urging him to return to his apartment. So, he returns to his vampire child, who is dying of starvation. In this crucial moment, he rips open his tongue, therefore condemning himself to death by heart failure due to blood loss, to give her life, the life that he doesn't want anymore because he doesn't have anything to live for, and takes the creature back to where he found it so it can live underground.

And that's when it hits him right in the face, the terror he seeked desperately all along is there at last, because at this very moment he sees that this creature is otherworldly and is not his missing child but a demon monster, and so he now realizes that everything that he did was to feed a demon child, and the mere presence of being looking at this demon, who is not his little kid anymore but a monster, scares him to death, a death that also is real because he is now at the other side of the camera, and this made it more real than ever.

Who was this kid??? Well, there's a theory in the asian mythology that there are deities called Marebitos, that come to our world every now and then to heal things, so maybe this kid came to Masuokas life to heal his longing for his child, and ended being the terror he seeked during the movie.

Hope this helps you.........

this movie's perfect if you saw the ring, found out it was japanese in origin, liked it and want to get into japanese horror. it's not too over the top but it has all the right elements (some wierd sex stuff, sadism, and sick obsessions) if you're already kind of into japanese horror it's the definition of decent. it's a rent not a buy

Japanese Horror has become widely popular in the U.S. after the successes recently achieved by acclaimed hits such as "Ringu" and Ju-on, and while these past horror films are classics in their own right; there are quite of few imitations that deaden the premise of long-haired vengeful ghost. I remember watching a very different type of J-horror in early 2005; "Marebito" directed by Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on:The Grudge) is somewhat a "lovecraftian" film in a very different way. It is somewhat similar to short "shock" stories and has the philosophy and psychology of contemporary Japanese culture. Quite frankly, I'm very surprised with the low rating this film has received in amazon, it is a lot better than most reviewers gave it credit for.

Synopsis partially derived from the back cover:
Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto) is a cameraman possessed by the craving to understand fear. In particular, he obsesses over his footage of a grisly suicide in the subway. Returning to the scene to better understand the dead man's reasoning he opens a doorway into a bizarre, cavernous underworld. Here among the ghosts and subterranean creatures, he finds a beautiful, naked, mute young girl whom he takes to his home. As the days past, Masuoka suspects that there something truly inhuman about this girl. When he begins to uncover her terrifying secrets, Masuoka realizes that he has finally found the key in gaining the terrible knowledge he so craves...

Shot in a meager 8 days, with only a few actors with a very limited budget, with very limited special effects, "Marebito" achieves a lot by carefully understanding the mood of psychological horror. Alienation, self-pity and loathing, mutation, alien influences, loneliness, the collapse of tradition, perverted sexuality...all these hidden themes and motifs are observed in subtle fashion by this film. The film creates a bitter and unique moody feel to its main premise of very creepy obsession and inevitable descent into madness and eventual doom. The director's unique style in delivering the audience into the delves of Masuoka's unhinged consciousness through the camera's perspective adds a lot of gritty and disturbing "feeling" of being immersed into a psychotic mind. I commend the director in avoiding some overused special effects, because truly, the basic psychotic mind is such a terrifying thing to be privy to.

Shinya Tsukamoto is the right choice to play an alienated, solitary obsessive man. The man is an awesome director as well as a director. He played the antagonist on the recent hit "Nightmare Detective" as well as in the cult hit; "Haze" and is the director responsible for the TETSUO franchise. He plays his character with almost effortless fashion, he truly shines in playing a man detached from mundane reality and society, completely focused on finding the darkest, sinister truths in the nethermost places of human experience. The nude girl (Tomomi Miyashita) is obviously not normal, perhaps even inhuman, and she remains unnamed, which adds more to its flare of mystery. Disturbing highlights of Masuoka's madness include him feeding the girl blood, and with a twisted touch, from a baby bottle! Don't worry, this is NOT another vampire film. Masuoka has his own agenda why he took this nude girl to his apartment, and the reason is a bit subtle that some reviewers missed it. Masuoka lost his daughter in the past and now he awaits the final horror that this nude girl may be the avatar to his desire for self-destruction. There is also some use of subtle symbolism that represents Masuoka's commitment to his cause, the masochistic desire to feel and understand the darkest ultimate reality. The only way is down...into the abyss.

MAREBITO is at its strongest with its very subtle suggestive themes and teases. The film may get a bit slower-paced in the middle and gets a little hampered with promises unfulfilled. But with its backdrop of a very peculiar mind, that may have been imagined than as a reality; "Marebito" may disappoint those looking for explanations and details, but for me, the film is not a film about set-pieces, nor is it a film full of scary aliens and landscapes. "Marebito" delves into the psychological aspect, maybe blood represents something else and viewers may have to take multiple-viewings to understand the complexity of its plot and hidden details. It is more a mood piece about an obsessed individual on a downward spiral towards insanity and eventual destruction. The film is definitely cryptic in its delivery and maybe geared to an ESOTERIC few very initiated to this style of psychological horror. Dark, moody and cryptic, "Marebito" may not be a plot-based affair, but for some strange reason, I really enjoyed this offering by Takashi Shimizu. It is a welcome departure from the typical J-horror that has flooded the U.S. lately. It is an experience unlike any other, which is so effective with existential dread and mind-bending claustrophobia.

The unknown definitely arouses my interest....

Highly Recommended! To those who love mind-bending horror. [4 Stars]

Note: To my surprise, Tartan carries a phenomenal transfer for a film shot in 8 days with excellent subtitles and a surprisingly powerful Japanese language 5.1 DTS track.

Foremost, you may know the director of this film, Takashi Shimizu, from his work with "Ju-On: The Grudge" and "Ju-On 2." Both films employ the concept of the uncanny with shivering exactitude. Marebito is a bit different.

Film premise: Wanting to experience genuine terror, Masuoka tosses his Prozac in the garbage (literally) and descends into the bowels of the Tokyo subway system. In this dim emptiness, he encounters an apparition who guides him to the underworld. (And reveals the terrors of "detrimental robots" which rob a person of blood). In the CGI-esque realm, he finds a beautiful, nude woman chained in a cave. He "rescues" her ... toting her back to his apartment. Without spoilers, what follows is "How To Feed A Vampire 101." (Including ridiculously adorable baby-bottles!)

Thankfully, more resides beneath the surface. An encounter with Masuoka's wife begins to reveal the truth. And that Masuoka calls his new, monstrous "pet" "F" actually begins to make sense ... another name seems to begin with "F";) (You'll understand after viewing the film.)

Still, most of the film is exposition, which is frustrating. (Takashi Miike does this well in "Audition," so we know that exposition-heavy films can work ... when there is a huge "pay-off" in the end). Moreover, there is precious little dialogue: most of the story is first-person voice-over. This can become a somewhat isolating (and I am quite certain that this sense of isolation echoes Masuoka's own loneliness ... I "get" that ... but I'm just not certain it is entirely effective here).

The film is worth a rent if you are a J-Horror fan. But, if this is your first attempt at the genre, try a more "viewer-friendly" film (check the many Listmania's here at Amazon) and then return to this one once you have a "feel" for them. (Otherwise, you may lose your patience with this film).

So I'm sure everyone knows that 'Ju-on' is one of my favorite movies. So when I heard that director Takashi Shimizu was coming out with something different, I was skeptical at first. Luckily for me my father-in-law had a copy and he loaned it to me. Anywho, onto my review. From the writer and director of Ju-on, Takashi Shimizu presents to us Marebito. Marebito tells the story of a news cameraman named Masuoka. Masuoka had just recently filmed a man killing himself in the subway station and that experience has left him wondering, what is fear? He then soon discovers ghosts living in homes and he learns about a place below the subway, a place that is like the underworld. He finds his way there and finds a girl naked and chained to a wall and he takes her back with him to the surface determined to teach her to act like a human. The only person who ends up changing is him.

I was interested to hear that Takashii Shimizu was doing another movie; at first I wasn’t too interested in seeing it. But when the release date came it wasn’t playing at my theater. So I had to wait to see it on DVD. I thought the movie was pretty cool. It did make you really wonder, was Masuoka actually crazy and was he making everything up? Or was everything actually happening? So that did confuse you a bit. Especially when they tell you one thing, then change it. I enjoyed watching this movie very much, it started off like a ghost story but then turned into more of a psychological horror. I will admit this movie wasn’t very exciting and that’s what I did kind of expect, but it was still good to watch. I did like Shinya Tsukamoto acting in it and he in fact has been in several other, I guess you can say cult movies. Ichi the killer and Tetsuo the Iron man to name a couple.

The movie reminded me a bit of a Kiyoshi Kurosawa picture in terms of lack of music and subtlety, but it did not have the same effect. The movie is actually based on a novel of the same name, the writer also wrote the screenplay adaptation. The screenplay was a stand out amongst all things. Psychological and maybe even a bit vampiric, very original especially at a time when remakes and copies of other movies are coming out into our theaters. It is about time everybody went to the foreign section of their video store and see what they can find. If your still unsure maybe this quote can help; "Horror, is actually an ancient wisdom that we find deep in the memory of our souls....."

Well I am a fan of Japanese cinema. I've seen a good deal of films, my favorite films being from Takashi Miike and Shinya Tsukamoto. My favorite movies in the past have been Ichi the Killer, Gozu, Audition, Tetsuo, as well as other films from them as well as other assorted directors. Well my friends offered me a trip to a distant theatre to see a stange Japanese film that was rarely talked about. Marebito was its name.

So after I watched it and left the theatre, I was speechless. Well let me get this out of the way. The movie didn't make a damn bit of sense. There were more plot holes in this movie than can be imagined. It left open a lot of discussion, but some parts were either too metaphorical, or were just random and unexplained.

Other than that gripe, this was a great movie. It had a lot of style, and just a real haunting aura to it. The plot in the movie has something to do with the main character wanting to capture fear on camera, than wishing to experience this fear. He goes beneath Tokyo, in the advanced subway system.

Before you can scream "lots-o-literary-referances," he winds up in Lovecraft inspired dreamscape where he finds a vampire girl, who is gaurded by robot creatures that walk around on all fours.

Or something like that. I'm not really too sure.

So he then takes this vampire girl home, and of course, wierd things start happening. I won't tell too much more of the plot, I'll let you experience it in all of its noncoherant glory.

The film is filled with obscure referances to historical events, as well as scientific theories. There are all of these subtle commentaries on society, but they aren't exactly executed too well. In fact, I'm just presuming most of these subtle commentaries existed, because otherwise, a lot of the scenes I witnessed were just random.

Ok, I was a bit harsh on this movie, for the fact that it made no sense. If you are a fan of japanese cinema, or horror, check this film out. Its full of style, and wierd / violent going-ons. I'm so glad I saw this one in the theatres... Its one of my favorite Japanese films, only second to Tetsuo: Iron Man.

In the middle of making all of those "Ju-On" movies, director Takashi Shimizu comes up with something different than a haunted house movie. In fact, "Marebito" ("The Stranger From Afar"), was shot in eight days between "Ju-On" and its American remake. Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the "Tetsuo" films) is an amateur videographer who becomes a student of the nature of fear. While shooting in the subways beneath Tokyo he captures the suicide of an old man. Masuoka becomes convinced the man did it out of fear and wonders what it was that he saw that drove him to do what he did, finally deciding: "They didn't see something that terrified them. They saw something because they were terrified." Masuoka decides he wants to experience such fear, and begins exploring the Tokyo underground to find was it was the old man saw.

Masuoka, a freelance cameraman obsessed with trying to understand the nature of fear, accidentally captures footage of a man committing suicide in the Tokyo subway. Intrigued by the event, Masuoka returns to the scene, where he finds a passage into the underworld, called the Mountains of Madness (a reference to H.P. Lovecraft?). Exploring the subterranean tunnels and caves of the netherworld, he finds a naked girl (Tomomi Miyashita) chained up in an alcove. Masuoka rescues her and brings her back home to his small apartment. Calling her F, he discovers she is not quite human. F crawls around on all fours and does not speak, or eat or drink, until he learns the blood is mother's milk to her and Masuoka becomes determined to supply it for her. Then a mysterious Man in Black (Shun Sugata), begins following Masuoka and calling his cell phone, as the mysterious things start piling up faster and deeper.

Shimizu uses a lot of handheld digi-cams to represent Masuoka's view of the underground world through his videocamera (I am starting to notice that technology is not considered a good thing in these Japanese horror films). "Marebito" is not a film with shocks and scares, as much as one that leads to its horror through psychological dimensions as Masuoka willingly descends into hell. Since this is largely a personal journey, there is relatively little dialogue, with the film relaying on voiceovers by Masuoka to let us know what the character is thinking each step of the way. What Masuoka says becomes a bit ponderous at times, but I do not know if that is because of Chiaki Konaka's screenplay, based on his novel, or whoever did the translation.

"Marebito" comes with one big warning and that is that you have to watch it (at least) twice to come to terms with it. This is not because Shimizu is telling a confusing story, but more because our expectations, both in terms of the culture and the genre, lead us off track. The end ing is not as abrupt as it seems, but I can understand if viewers do not want to work hard to figure out the ending of a Japanese horror film. But on balance, I think "Marebito" is worth the effort. At least it is something different from Shimizu.

Director Takashi Shimizu took a short break from his endless re-filming of "Ju-on", between his last Japanese version and directing the new American version called "The Grudge". In order to refresh his mind from his crowd-pleasing formula, he went with something entirely different, the kind of random and brave experimental film that won him "Ju-on" in the first place. What he came up with was "Marebito".

Shot in just eight days, and filmed with a mix of film and hand-held video, "Marebito" might just be a little too experimental for most people. Shimizu took the theories of Richard Shaver as his starting point. Shaver, a 1930s madman/prophet who believed he had been given the power to read minds from a welding gun, wrote books about a secret race of underground dwellers that he named "deros", or detrimental robots, who were a degenerate sub-species living in a hollow Earth. Very few people remember the "Shaver Mystery" nowadays, so this reference gets unfortunately lost, and is a bit confusing.

The story, on the other hand, is quite simple. Masuoka, a camera-obsessed social misfit, become obsessed with the idea of experiencing true terror after watching a suicide on TV. In his quest for fear, he enters the underground sewers, where he encounters a dero-girl naked and chained to a wall. He frees her, names her "F" and takes her home as his new pet. Not a wise idea. From there, Masuoka's descent begins, along with the audience's as director Shimizu asks us to question what is real and what is not, what is sane and what is insanity.

All in all, "Marebito" is only a decent film. Shimizu's attempt to break out of his formula is respectable, if not successful. There is more psychology here than any genuine chills, and his reliance on the obscure Shaver Mystery is guaranteed to lose many viewers who are not familiar. It is short enough, at only 90 minutes, that it doesn't drag on too long, and it is a refreshing change from the usual j-horror.