Orig. title - Kairo
(Distributed by Toho)
Eerie ghost story about a supernatural force that is associated with computers that drives people into depression and often suicide. There are two parallel stories: the first involves the employees of a floriculturist business--Michi, Junko, and Yabe--whose co-worker might have been the first victim. The second storyline involves a college student, Kawashima, who is testing the internet (ah, the quaint days of dial-up internet) when he receives spooky invitations to a website that purports to show ghosts. The head of the school computer lab, Harue, commits herself to investigating his claims.
Did I find the film scary? There were a few creepy parts and one scene made me jump. There is a video on YouTube that analyzes what the author feels is the scariest scene of all time--when Yabe goes into the forbidden room. That scene is spooky, to be sure. But it was a preceding scene that made me jump. It's really not one of those types of movies, though. One of the more understated sequences is the news broadcast, where we here name after name being mentioned on the recently missing persons list, which list seems to go on with no end in sight.
Do we ever get an explanation for the supernatural phenomena in the film? Sort of. One of Harue's work colleagues is a graduate student who seems to be the most in the know about ghosts. He proposes a theory that parallels Dawn of the Dead's "No More Room in Hell" hypothesis. I wish more had been explained about the red tape and forbidden room aspects of the plot, but I guess that ambiguity necessary for the story. The film is ultimately a commentary on the isolation and alienation of people. I'm guessing that it was already a problem in Japan--at least in urban areas--to some extent before the advent of the internet, so the so-called Information Superhighway just exabercated things. I'm guessing that 2001 was more or less the point where the vast majority of the First World had already broken down and gotten a PC with dial-up access (heh). From there on out, our collective abilities to find true and meaningful connections with people would continue to decline.
And that is where the film really gets depressing.
Spoiler:
