Well, since I devoured this series whole on a single day, I think I owe Netflix's release of Juon: Origins a some attention. Honestly, and after me complaining like an oldie about the present sorry state of J-Horror in previous posts, I'm really happy I gave this a try: in fact, the director team's approach to this miniseries has vastly surpassed my expectations. Each of these six episodes tastefully recreated the original horror genre of the late nineties, while successfully implementing much of the -very valuable- elements Japanese cinema has developed since then, both in visual language and script. The result, at once innovative and recreative, is indeed highly original, and the mere fact that Shô Miyake has been capable of bringing new life into the endless succession of ghost horror films of the last two decades is commendable at this point. Moreover, the beautiful cinematography and the subtle simplicity on the production department speak tones on behalf of Juon: Origins. This returning to a previous aesthetic under new premises and present-day cinematic sensibilities is genuinely today's geist (if we just consider Stranger Things or Stephen King's new It for a second), and in fact it has been fostered by Netflix's recent projects. Indeed, it is quite possible that, without Netflix's international budgeting and hands-free approach, Juon: Origins had never existed at all; such is the strenght of the grip Japan's media companies exercise over filmmaking.
There are lots of things to love here; not only the lightning and framing is exactly that of the classics of the genre but Juon's team brought to life the whole Japanese nineties: obsolete hardware and vehicles, cheeky hairdressing and attire we all are familiar with. However, the series does not stay at a surface level; Miyake decided to include VHS tapes with recorded images of events pertaining to the story's timeframe, and also elaborates others in order to reflect historical references to events anyone familiar enough with Japan will understand. The nature of such events, most of them catastrophes or murderings, strongly reflect the series' themes and statements -I contend-, and portray the loss of innocence not only the characters experiment from the get-go on a downwards spiral, but also the one Japan as a whole experimented during the nineties, and the one Japanese cinema makes explicit today. This endless mirroring of inner demons fits the claustrophobic atmosphere inhabited by the cast, slowly built upon right from the first chapter.
Now, if the plot is in fact reminiscent of that of the franchise's beginnings, its language has indeed benefited from the rawness of today's productions, a far call from the things you could get away with during the nineties and early two thousands. Aside from the exploitation and pingu eiga of the seventies, graphic imagery of murderings and explicit sex were considered a no-no within readily available Japanese commercial productions of both eighties and nineties, until the early two thousands saw a revival (I like to associate with films in the vein of Iwai's All About Lily [リリイ・シュシュのすべて]) (2001) capable of openly dealing with these themes on the big screen. In fact within the two first chapters there is a rape scene pretty much similar to the one in All About Lily at all effects, yet here the treatment is pretty modern. Themes of parental abuse abound here, as they do in other Japanese Netflix productions such as the -also amazing- Erased (poor translation of 'The city where I don't exist' [僕だけがいない街]) (2017), or recent productions such as Liverleaf [ミスミソウ] (2018). Drug
EP1 (1988) - The Chernobyl Incident
While seemingly unrelated to Japan, the first chapter opens up with a reference to the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl, or rather its radioactive fallout (as the actual incident happened in 1986). I consider Miyake included it for two major reasons: first, it was an international event most people will be familiarized with, and secondly, it pointed towards a major change in History at the moment. The unraveling of the Soviet Union pretty much announced a new world order shaking things up, as the Cold War began to wane; thus, the theme of 'change' and the unfamiliar resonates for the first time. Plus, let's not forget that, even without the Fukushima meltdown at the time, Japan was the most nuclear-savy country in the map, when it came to the human suffering radioactive material could inflict on civilian people. Accordingly, the event was there just as traumatizing as it was in Europe despite its geographic distance.
EP2 (1988-1989) - The murdering of Junko Furuta
Among all passing news segments we are analyzing, this one shakes Haruka Honjo more than any other. The television announces the finding of a highschool girl's body encased on a concrete barrel; she had been kidnapped and tortured during an entire month by juvenile delinquents. While the series announces the victim as "Sakura Mitsuhashi" out of respect for Junko's family, the announcement undoubtely refers to the "Case of murdering of highschool girl encased in concrete" as it is commonly known of in Japan [女子高生コンクリート詰め殺人事件]. As I hadn't thought of the incident since long ago, it really surprised me to see it referenced here (plus on an international streaming site). In the context of the series, it also relates to the theme of losing one's innocence, as the murders were in fact minors of age despite their monstrous deeds; it mirrors Kiyomi Kawai's fall from grace.
Victim of one of the saddest stories ever told, Junko Furuta [古田順子] (1971–1989) barely died a human death. The case is too vile to discuss it on extension and a great chance for misanthropists to make their case. Her death at the hands of minors of age triggered an intense debate over reforming the law which allows legal minors to get very light sentences in order to be re-educated an get back to society under a new alias. It has not ended, and to this day has worsened since all of her murders have turned to crime again (one of them stabbing a man's neck not that long ago), and the mother of one of them desecrated Junko's grave with inscriptions.EP3 (1995) - The Great Hanshin Earthquake, and the Matsumoto Incident
Feeling generous, the third chapter gives us two major events in early 1995. One of them is natural, the 7 grade earthquake that ruined Kobe and other Japanese cities in the area; the poor reaction from the government, which had been slacking on its natural disaster response plans and training, earned it a hard time. Its rejecting foreign aid to deal with the fallout was also a mistake, and thus the terrible prize of this major event in part ended up originating the internationally acclaimed response team Japan has developed these couple of decades since, and bettering much of the systems Japan has now in place in order to deal with these frequent and deadly catastrophes.
You better know this one from my repeated posting of Aum Shinrikyo material these last months! In fact, Asahara managed to stop a court case against Aum by releasing sarin from a modified refrigerated van near the house of three judges. As Aum chemists were capable of purifying the mix on this occasion, the deadly cloud killed 8 neighbours, injured other 500 and in fact left a disturbing trail of dogs, birds and even caterpillars dead on the spot; grass and trees withered and even leafs did lose their colors. This chemical attack, the first aimed at civilians since WWII, was blamed on a victim, Yoshiyuki Kōno, since he had pesticides and dealed with heavy machinery. Only the time would end up cleaning his name after much distress and public shaming; the news segments accurately display his being investigated by the police. Both of these events ratify the growing feeling of living on a far more dangerous society than expected.
EP4 (1995) - Aum Shinrikyo's subway sarin attack
Of course, if it comes to reviving national trauma, the big one will also appear. Chapter 4 offers a brief segment on the gas attack (you can check my entry on that). In fact, Asahara had used the Hanshin earthquake as further evidence of the coming apocalypse on its path to destroy civilization; combined with Aum's actual fright of being under the focus of both police and armed forces, and its further estrangement from society and law as a whole, it proved a deadly mix. After the success at Matsumoto, and after having militarized its inner structure from 1993 onwards, Asahara and his chosen ones were sure this attack would stir a lasting wound on Japan's collective memory. They weren't wrong, and the nineties in Japan are forever tied to the memory of that fateful day. As for the reasons behind Miyake's decision of also cover these two Aum crimes, I can guess it also reflects (as the case itself did within the media) a breach of trust between people within society; the perpretators all had postgraduate degrees, and were regular workers prior their entry into Aum. It reflects a society out of control, and both the desperation and the rage burning under the amicable social interactions, just as the abusive aspects of the series (from rape to beatings) always take place indoors, within the Uchi [内] sphere of the homely and the private. This dicotomy distinctive of Japanese as a language is also fitting for the curse, within the margins of the inner house, also a metaphor for the mind, its trauma and its secret workings. It also reflects a growing interest in the Aum phenomena at large (the execution of Asahara being still a recent event), and -I wish!- possible productions dealing with Aum, perhaps in fiction or in documentary form. With a Netflix's budget that'd be great, actually.
EP6 (1997) - The Kobe child murderings
This case is also quite old, and involves the murdering of two children 11 years old by -surprisingly- another child, 14 years old Shinichiro Azuma. With a narcissistic personality, sadistic impulses such as killing animals and an irregular family background but -as attested by the psychological tests- clinically sound, the young kid tricked his first victim into an errand of searching turtles and killed him; the next day he beheaded the corpse and left the head in front of their school, with a cryptic letter on its mouth. On it he called himself Seito Sakakibara [酒鬼薔薇聖斗] and proclaimed a crusade against the Japanese authorities assisted by his guiding spirit, "Bamoidōkishin"; the mature language of his letter, including some cryptic ancient kanji led experts to believe the real mastermind had been someone else years after the incident.
The comic-esque child villain was soon stopped by the authorities, but not before a new killing by hammering a little girl's head, and causing severe injuries to another two (slashing one with a naked sword). Like Junko Furuta's story, the sound case strongly challenged the public opinion on the juvenile crime law; while its modification on the year 2000 lowered the threesold from 16 years old to 14, some in the public still object to it.
'Sakakibara''s sentence was indeed short; in 2005 he was fully released, and his name was still erased from the public domain, being named 'Boy A' (just as the next famous Japanese child murderer 'Nevada', an eleven years old girl, was called 'Girl A'). But he hasn't kept a low profile, exactly. I wasn't aware of his writing a best-selling autobiography in 2015, titled Zekka [絶歌], but writing a blog gives you surprises, I guess. In the context of Juon: Origins, the case also serves its function as portraying a decaying society, and in this case also perturbates the pregnant housewife moving into the cursed house. She switches the TV off and walks away in silence, perhaps pondering whether her baby will turn into a victim or perhaps a killer in the future.
Thus, the series unravels the dark undercurrents of contemporary Japan not only as a timeframe parameter, but also as a way of introducing the arguibly traumatic material most characters endure, whether it's of social or paranormal origins. Its presence on the screen is backed by a reality far more sinister than initially thought, and opens a psychological space where the incredibly awful can manifest without irruption or dissonance. Contrary to the idealization trends which have plagued Japan's audiovisual culture in past times (as they have in any country really, at certain periods) and particularly during its economic boom, Juon: Origins constitutes an inverted presentation card, picturing its dark side. This is pretty innovative since, even if there is a lot of borderline content being published in Japan, most if not all of it leaves history behind. It does not matter how ill-fated protagonists are on such imaginary scenarios, or the actual social maladies they might reflect; they -perhaps consciously- avoid actual events on behalf of imaginary -thus formless, painless- settings where the cruel and the a-rational may manifest. Taking the opposite course of action has been not only brave but quite fruitful, shading a light on these fragments of history, still quite insular to Japan to this very day. Along with this, Miyake's script also contributes to a present-day effort to denounce social maladies such as domestic abuse or neglect, which have been record setting on recent years.
On its supernatural aspect, the film presents itself conservative and experimental at once. The first, on its measured and austere depiction of specters, very much in line with early two thousands horror such as Dark Water [仄暗い水の底から] (2002) or The Ring itself [リング] (1998); the short, uncomfortable and intense scenes remain pretty much in the dark and avoid the over-exposing and green blue-ish productions of recent ghost stories.. As for the latter, Juon: Origins also innovates, displaying doppelgängers, ghostly kidnappings in unlikely settings, and some formal innovations (such as those of the two last chapters, in particular the black and white flashback scenes). The bizarre shadowy figure at the window is indeed haunting, and there's also what appears to be spontaneous human combustion. Frenetic on their pace, these last chapters leave many questions unanswered, but they are as enjoyable as the series as a whole. If you think this is for you, I think it's worth your time.
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