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Pulse AKA Kairo
R1 - America - Magnolia Pictures Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Roger Nicholl (18th April 2006). |
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The Film
 In the Japanese horror film Pulse the worst thing to fear about death isn’t death itself, but eternal loneliness. After death our ghosts reside in a dimension of finite space, which is now full and overflows into our world - kind of like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead (1978). What the ghosts want is an end to their loneliness, so they start (I’m still not sure exactly what they do) taking lonely people. Possessing them? Killing them? Somehow they make them feel less alone, and they enter the ghost’s realm. They do this over the internet, which plays out a lot less gimmicky than it sounds, this is not like terrible FeardotCom (2002). But I get the feeling that this helps no one, and eternal despair will be the result no matter what. This is a horror film where people never truly connect. To underline the sense of loneliness and social isolation director Kiyoshi Kurosawa gives us shots with people placed at disconcertingly different distances away from the camera than we’re used to. Or he may have people in the same shot who are talking but not facing each other. He makes the city a lonely, grimy, unsocial place; a maze of decrepit single-occupant apartments, all under-lit and uninviting to anyone but the occupant. It’s enough to make you rethink your JET application. There are some quite affecting scenes early on. A young woman discovers the body of a coworker who’s committed (committing, it leaves the question open at this point) suicide. And the first time we see the strange dark images of lonely, possessed people on a computer screen is quite eerie. But by the end the discordant soundtrack with modem-distorted groaning grows a bit tired, and the ghost web cam shots of black figures slowly approaching the screen seems old. At nearly two hours the film couldn’t keep up a sense of dread, a deliberate pace, and this viewer’s attention. Other than its length, another problem with the film is that intriguing ideas are mixed with surprisingly clunky scenes. Like the (I guess) origin-of-the-ghosts scene where a demolition crew tear down a building which has a haunted room that happens to have some internet wires running through it that the ghost escapes through. This problem is especially jarring at the end. Just when the film it is trying to draw its most profound conclusions, plot contrivance and coincidence make it hard to focus on the film’s message. There’s the scene where a guy chases a completely unnecessary fuel cap into the last place you’d want to go. There’s also the unlikely search party success; they have absolutely no idea where to look but see an abandoned factory across the street and decide to give it a try and Hey, presto! Pulse has intriguing ideas within a not particularly good film. It’s has stretches where I thought this is really good, followed by stretches where the complete opposite was true. I wanted it to be better. I really wish it was good. But it’s not really, and I can’t recommend it. I’m no booster of American remakes of Japanese horrors (I am capable of reading subtitles, thanks) but I’ll be interested to see the upcoming remake. Not with any hope that they’ll improve on the original, but just to see what tack they will take with a film about social isolation and eternal loneliness.
Video
Presented in 1.78:1 this anamorphic widescreen image is a little too dark for my liking, although the film itself is shot in a dim setting to establish mood the blacks here show little detail and I found it hard on occasion to actually see what I was watching onscreen. This is particularly annoying, the overall image is sharp but a color grade is in order for some scenes. I also found some compression artefacts throughout the print and the occasional speck of dirt. It’s a good transfer that could use an overhaul.
Audio
Only one audio track is included here, a Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, while the Honk Kong Region 3 release include a 5.1 surround track Magnolia didn’t see fit to allow that same luxury here. Being a horror film whose aim is to create a certain atmosphere I was a little disappointed with this track, so many missed opportunities where depth in sound could have benefited the scene were simply lackluster. While dialogue is clear there isn’t much else going for this track, I felt in a way the director’s vision may have been compromised with this ineffective stereo mix. Optional subtitles are also included in English and Spanish, I found the English subtitles to be of a good quality in terms of spelling and grammar, they also don’t go by quickly allowing the viewer to take in the dialogue without having to rewind to catch anything you may have missed.
Extras
First up we have the Making of Pulse: Behind-the-Scenes this documentary runs for around 40 minutes and is in Japanese with forced English subtitles. This clip follows the director as he prepares for production as well as provides the viewer with a look at the filming of several key scenes from the film, this is fly on the wall type stuff that is often much better than your standard EPK style featurettes, you also get an interview with the director telling us about the film. Overall I was generally pleased with this effort it allows the viewer to see what a being on a film set is like. Next up we have the film’s original theatrical trailer. This one is for the US market as it has English intertitles. Rounding out the extras are a collection of bonus trailers that include: - The World’s Fastest Indian - One Last Thing - HDNet promo spot - Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - Bubble - The War Within - A League of Ordinary Gentlemen The first three previews listed are start-up trailers and play before the menu, these cannot be selected from the menu and can be skipped easily by pressing the menu button on your remote. Although the extras are a little thin the behind-the-scenes clip was quite substantial and provides a decent look at how this film was made.
Overall
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