Kwaidan (35mm)

Selected by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Rentarô Mikuni finds a skeleton at the feast when he adds a second wife; woodcutter Tatsuya Nakadai meets a strange woman in the snow; a blind biwa player gives a command performance for a spirit; an apparition appears in a cup of tea. After more than a decade of sober political dramas and socially minded period pieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously crafted.

Part of the Fraenkel Film Festival