Hideo Nakata
Ringu

Cinema is an art that continues to evolve, constantly changing, taking the form of endless spirals that assume new shapes, images, and references. Particularly genre cinema, and specifically horror, a genre often underestimated but one of the most influential, even managing to infect melodrama (the splendid Cronenberg's "The Fly" is an example: a mad mix of horror and romantic story, but also "Audition" by Takashi Miike and many others) and comedy ("The Quiet Family," "Happiness Of The Katakuris," "Wild Zero").

Originating mainly from the United States and Italy, with the more explicit form of splatter, this genre has been able to influence even the methods of filmmaking in other cultures and nations (think especially of the emerging Belgian horror scene, more inclined towards auteur cinema, and the unprecedented Chilean horror revival). For some years, however, the horror genre has been expanded and showcased by the Orient: a real explosion of films, ranging from masterpieces to bland and flat operettas. It all began with the incredible success of this "Ringu," although Oriental horror cinema started much earlier, due to the kaidan-eiga, the folk stories of Japanese ghosts. As early as the '60s, the first Japanese horror films appeared, including the incredible "Onibaba", continuing over the years with stories of psychedelic appeal ("Hausu", a masterpiece of visionariness and original ideas) and true plagiarisms of Western splatter cinema (the fluctuating series "Evil Dead Trap"), even reaching the threshold of snuff (the "Guinea Pig" series, which even shocked the FBI fearing the tortures suffered by a girl weren't exactly fictional).

Yet, after over thirty years of roots in spectral and terrifying stories, the Western audience only became aware of this new trend with "Ringu" in 1998.

Adapted from the marvelous book by Koji Suzuki, the film retraces the now historic plot of the killer videotape that causes a heart attack to anyone who watches it after a week. Investigating is the journalist Asakawa (in the book, the protagonist was a man), after the disappearance of her niece, helped by her ex-husband.

But unlike the now-famous American remake, Nakata’s "Ringu" is a successful combination of ancient and hypermodern elements, tradition and technology. The premise originates from Japanese culture, in its every essence, linked to the relationship between spirits and the living. According to Shintoism, the religion most practiced by the Japanese, the world of the living is surrounded by a parallel and invisible world that somehow manages to influence it.

As Nakata himself stated, the difference between Oriental and Western horror lies precisely in culture and religion: Western horror often shows the struggle between good and evil, derived from Christianity, a monotheistic religion, whereas Oriental horror is based on the relationship between the living and the dead.

This theme recurs very prominently in this little cult classic, whose atmospheres are strongly swampy and ancestral, demonstrating how important the roots of a people are to create a film. However, Nakata's ambition seems to go beyond: he seeks to install in the viewer the fear of the unknown, the sense of bewilderment in the face of the unknown (like death, something we don't know but of which we are terrified).

We are far from the idea of terror in the form of disturbing images and high blood content (splatter), the origin of fear here is mainly due to presences that appear and vanish, a stunning musical score (by Kenji Kawai, composer of "Ghost In The Shell" and "Dark Water"), slow and enveloping camera movements...

The directing style is immediately recognizable and is appreciated for its pure and haunting essence.

The film, therefore, doesn't resort to fear, yet it leaves that strange and distressing unease that haunts you and won't let you go. The actors are superb (starting with the protagonist) and empathizing with the characters they play is simple, yet also unsettling.

Besides the malevolent videotape (which here assumes meaning, unlike the remake where many of the images make no sense and aren't related to Samara's story), the symbol of "Ringu" is the well: a place where one's soul, identity, and life fade away, sinking. A symbol of death, but not only: it's also a metaphor for the human subconscious, which escapes ordinary coordinates and allows access to terrifying dimensions.

Another strong symbol of this work is the ghost itself, Sadako, the little girl dressed in white with hair covering her frightening face and without fingers will become a true icon of horror cinema, influencing many horror films post-"Ringu," not only Oriental ones (think of the Spanish "Fragile"). She is a victim, a little girl despised by everyone for her paranormal abilities, capable of killing with thought, but she is especially a victim of the brackish water of the well. Water, the fundamental element in Nakata's cinema (which will return in "Dark Water"), a symbol of evil, especially for Japan, an archipelago often struggling with tsunamis and typhoons. An evil they have learned to tame over time, but which still brings disruption and terror.

But "Ringu" is not a film to watch simply for its historical importance, the influence on subsequent films, or the ability to understand Japanese history and geography in a horror, but simply because it unsettles, anguishes, and leaves no escape.

And so, what more do you want from a horror?