a Cloud Maker

Pulse [Kairo] - 2001 (released in 2005)

by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

The temptation to embrace
'pulse' as an ordinary
'ghost movie', although strong
would be a mistake of such
impact as to deprive one
from understanding
(though for a few seconds)
what 'cinema' really is.

Pulse gives us a glimpse of
eternity, of an extremely
personal and desperate one.

from the indoors suspense, to the
world-wide chaos,
the sequence of events,
due to its poetical displaying,
is of a mental and
not logical succession.
Chronology, thou present,
isn´t a 'north star',
it´s not what will guide
you here but the events itself.

They are complements
(updates if you please) of the ones
displayed on the previous
scene.
Is upon this feature, that the
film gets
depth and strength,
for true fear isn´t in
viewing ugliness,
but on attaining complicity
and connection with such.

Each of the characters are
right there, they
understood life
by contemplating
death. And each will
react in a
different form upon
such knowledge,
If there´s a rule in it all,
it would be:
The more one knows
about what lies
beyond life, the more
he fears, the less he
'tries' living.

The way Kurosawa directed this movie,
shows much of his concern
for his characters´ internal
status, The shots are
specially done to illustrate
that which you and me could never
know for sure: what´s happening
inside their minds,
their thoughts, dreams,
(the not obviously showed) fears...

That´s pretty much what Pulse is,
a film about empty
'public' places,
about big towns contrasted with
small bed-rooms. About
the search for Understanding,
about comprehending
existence itself.

Perhaps the best feature of
kurosawa´s work is
the way he portrayed the
no longer living beings.
They are shades,
They are 'almosts'.
There and yet not.

But in 'Pulse' Ghosts aren´t
the cause of the
characters sufferings,
cause LIFE has 'personally'
taking charge of it.
They here are a personification of
the grinding/taking-away
of our after-life´s hopes.
- "Sorry, but there ain´t no 'happy end' (pulse says)".

This is what scares us
in seeing those deeply hopeless
creatures, the realization
that it´s real,
'there´s no hope'.

The only one who seams to have a better
perspective/understanding of it all,
is Harue Karasawa (the Teacher).

It is she who reveals us one of
the most powerful
metalinguistic
discourses I´ve so far encountered:

By analyzing ghosts behaviors,
she observed the recurrent
chain of events, repetitive
scenes: traces of ghosts.

Watching them suffering
the same way over and
over again, without a break,
always the same.

This same comprehension spoken of
led her to deny, Kawashima´s (the student)
vouch of eternal protection
(a quite beautiful one)
and to literally embrace
the 'condition' of
being a ghost, for comprehending
what one feels.

Wouldn´t it turn the tables on us?
If a ghost is a grieved soul
locked up
into a sad moment,
being displayed in such
hopeless time, over and
over again,
Then all characters are
in a way, as much ghosts
as ghosts are.

forever locked in that
'118 minutes' time frame,
being always remembered
and seen by us, the real living ones,
as sad and scary creatures.

That´s how deep 'Pulse' gets.
And it approaches much more and deep
questionings:
°What´s the Nature of happiness?
°What impact would 'truth'
(as in: 'the knowledge of eternity')
cause in our behavior/life?

Such realization (based on the film´s rules)
would be of an apocalyptic proportion,
explaining the need of the frightening
forbidden rooms (with it´s
red tape protection) and of the attempt
(thou failed) to use the web as a cell
('coincidentally' the same web of facebook! and MSN,
and all chats...)

above Fear, or philosophical reasonings,
Pulse is a film
about loneliness. And all
of it´s beautiful, thou frightnenig elements
are there to denote loneliness
as the root of our fears [and hopes],
every shot is designed to point out
the 'observer'.
That no one there is in deed alone.
Thou it might not be good news.


ps: It seems like having the 'survivors' decide to go to
the edge of the globe is a recurrent feature of kurosawa´s
films, I will check it out thou :)