Kwaidan

The film is made of four separate ghost stories: a woman met in the snow, a blind musician, a face seen in tea, and an abandoned wife. The stories are not connected. The film draws its fear from design rather than from the supernatural: painted skies, sets that are plainly artificial, colours kept unreal. The section in which text is written on the blind musician's body is its most cited scene. Masaki Kobayashi directed, adapting Japanese folk tales collected by Lafcadio Hearn. It runs past three hours, and one story is cut from some versions. Before watching: check which print you have; the shortened versions are missing one of the four. It is also very slow and aims to unsettle rather than startle.