Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Pulse

"Death is an eternal isolation" a specter sighs with difficulty at the end of this "Pulse," a film that does not want to be a simple horror, does not want to frighten, nor shock with peaks of senseless violence. It seeks to be a profound exploration of the relationship between death and solitude, hitting the mark with great skill, and becoming, paradoxically, a terrifying film and one of the most chilling around.

We no longer encounter the usual specters from Oriental folkloric tradition. No more Sadako and Kayako, nor Toshio, nor Mimiko, nor the Yoko from "Seance," a TV horror film by the same Kurosawa. We say goodbye, then, to the cataleptic-walking girls, pale skin, long raven hair hiding the gaze full of blood and revenge: here are spirits abandoned to an empty fate, swallowed into a black hole where eternal peace cannot reach.

These are spirits begging for mercy: that "help me" whispered by each ghost before and after its appearance symbolizes a population of lost souls, suspended in aimless oblivion, orphaned in a dark and depressing Purgatory.

Kurosawa does not concern himself with how these ghosts might reach computer networks, transforming into ectoplasms and driving reckless internet users to suicide, but he elucidates the terror deriving from the indiscriminate use of one of the most revolutionary and powerful technological tools of these years, ready to sink human contacts and reduce social life through a series of cold and atonal mouse clicks, often fictitious virtual relationships, and images that hide reality.

The characters are cold, passive, stripped of their personality, their individuality, except perhaps for the student Kawashima (incidentally the least computer-savvy in the entire film) and they circulate in a silent environment that gradually empties of life: empty game rooms, empty buses, empty subways, empty supermarkets...

The madness due to eternal silence, alienation, and solitude is inevitable, as is death. Yet that "help me" spoken by the ghosts seems like a simple and sincere plea for help, a hug, a bond with a world now lost, the desperate attempt to return to who they once were. But what truly remains of them is just a damp stain on the wall. A memory for those who can still afford to live.

And so, amidst the majestic and poignant enveloping shots, the bewildered gaze of the protagonists and the silences, Kurosawa returns to include a soundtrack in his film (the musical score was entirely absent in the masterpiece "Cure" and barely noticeable in the strange "Charisma"), which is not music, but a sequence of syncopated and sharp metallic noises, so disturbing as to take one's breath away, bringing terror with power and intensity in the sequences where the depiction of fear reaches its peak.

Remember the chilling yet splendid and poetic scene where a beautiful Harue with a loving gaze embraces nothing and whispers "I'm not alone anymore," while the camera captures her with brilliant jolts, pieces of a digital mirror game. Anguish thus inevitably takes over, and the only logical thing to do is to flee, no matter where, perhaps into the open sea to then transform into eerie damp spots on the wall, to leave a memory of oneself in a world to be abandoned.

A devastating masterpiece, which was the basis for an unwatchable and dreadful 2006 American remake with lackluster actors and a script that seems written on a piece of toilet paper. Watch the original and you will understand that ghosts are like us: they too suffer, they too wander alone.

Harue: "There is no one, I wonder why there is no one"
Kawashima: "I am here"
Harue: "What?"
Harue: "The entire humanity could disappear, but the important thing is that I am here and that you are too"