Pulse

Pulse is a 2001 J-horror film written directed and produced by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. the main plot has ghosts invading the world via the internet. It explores ideas about lonliness and isolation and our generations relationship to technology. I took the screenshots below from my own monitor to enhance the distance between the viewer and the person as it does in the movie. All the characters at some point meet strangers via the internet as ghostly images or bad resolution digital images in spaces which are like their own isolated rooms or offices or bedrooms. I used my small Samsung digital and enhanced the colour on photoshop to make my room more orange to contrast with the cold screen images.


As the film progresses we see more of the invading ghosts and Tokyo becomes depopulated as depressed and lonely people kill themselves or are cancelled out by spirits.

The suicide shot shown above is really well made. Its impossible to see where the cut is as the actress on top of the silo jumps, then hits the ground in what appears to be a single continuous take. Even in a frame by frame check I can't see the cut. But when the body hits the floor it does look like a dummy. It could be that it's an actual stunt with the actress on wires. I watched the Pang brothers J-horror The EYE2 and it also includes a scene where the actress jumps from a roof, twice! In the DVD extras you can see the actress wired up standing on the edge of the building. They don't show the jump but it's possible that she's lowered really slowly and then the take is speeded up. (Eye2 is worth a look for the effects of people moving through water then superimposed into the same space as people moving normally). Back to Pulse...



In the screenshots above (again from my monitor with a samsung NV5) you can see the scene where one of the ghosts becomes solid and attacks one of the characters. Like other J-horror films (The Ring especially) the director uses action shot backwards then played forward to make the ghosts look different or menacing. In this scene, the attacking female ghost (backwards going forwards) is in the same shot with the male character (moving normally). This is really effective.


There's really good use of colour with the living in strong coloured clothing and the dead in greys this sounds like a cliche but in the middle of real looking and empty Tokyo streets and buildings it works really well. Also he uses reflection well and polythene and plastic reflect bits of the ghosts in concrete spaces. Its quite quiet without much music. There's a really good image (not here) of plants in plastic bags which look almost like stand ins for the chracters.


The big budget shot is the explosion of a crashing plane near the end. Its not too effective visually it doesn't really fit. Everything else had been more about slow scares and sadness until 'bang' the plane falls out of the sky. Otherwise a fantastically shot and edited film.