Filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa is one of the modern masters of Japanese horror and this 2001 metaphysical drama may be his greatest film. Pulse opens in a city that is eerily empty of human activity as the population is gripped in what seems to be a plague of depression. Computer screens and cell phones are filled with the sputtering images and scratchy sounds of ghosts reaching out to the living, creating a malaise that spreads to all who view the messages. The explanation is inspired: the realm of the dead is full and they are using the Internet to stop more souls from coming in by sowing despair and hopelessness, destroying humans from within until the bodies fade away, leaving only an oily smudge in their wake. Kurosawa directs with a slow, deliberate rhythm that slips the weirdness in under the radar, until it takes over and defines the cinematic world. Years later, the film remains unique, serving up an insidious portrait of a fate worse than death—an eternity wandering the Earth as a lonely, tortured ghost trapped in apathy. The 2006 American remake, incidentally, boasts none of the eerie power of the original. Presented in a Blu-ray/DVD Combo set, extras include an archival “making-of” featurette, production featurettes, interviews with Kurosawa and cinematographer Junichiro Hiyashi, Tokyo premiere and Cannes Film Festival footage, and “The Horror of Isolation” featurette on the film's impact on the genre. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)
Pulse
Arrow, 118 min., in Japanese w/English subtitles, Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $39.95 October 30, 2017
Pulse
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