Loft (2005)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Writer:

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (screenplay)

Release Date:

9 September 2006 (Japan)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Another Misery is Coming... I Can Feel It

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Miki Nakatani	...	Reiko Hatuna
Etsushi Toyokawa	...	Makoto Yoshioka
Hidetoshi Nishijima	...	Koichi Kijima
Yumi Adachi	...	Aya
Sawa Suzuki	...	Megumi Nonomura
Haruhiko Katô	...	Murakami
Ren Ôsugi	...	Hino (as Ren Oosugi)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Noriko Eguchi

Also Known As:

Shi no otome (Japan) (working title)

Runtime:

Argentina:115 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Country:

Japan | South Korea

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR (digital)

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:15

Filming Locations:

Tokyo, Japan

Company:

Channel Neko

A much maligned masterpiece

I finally got around to watching Loft, after a year of owning the DVD If you find a copy, play it loud because the sound really makes the movie. The director is Kiyoshi Kurosawa and I'm a huge fan of his work. His films are just so often unable to be defined in one genre, or ANY genre for that matter. This film, often maligned by Netsperts (Net Experts), is one such film. The first 2 thirds of the film are so filled with so many haunting and hypnotic scenes. The film is macabre and yet beautiful. I couldn't look away and just sat there glued to the TV, breathing shallowly like only Kiyoshi Kurosawa can make me do.

His films have a pace that makes drying paint seem like an adventure sport. But what that means is that every shot of the film is studying something or someone, or something that isn't even there. Every shot of the film is watching something. As with all of his films that I have seen, in Loft I felt a kind of voyeuristic feeling, like I was there in the scene too. It is hard to describe, but this quality is clearly what alienates a lot of the Netsperts. What they considered painfully boring had me on the edge of my seat until the last frame. I think that that is why this film is maligned by Netsperts: if you aren't a viewer that watches films with apathy and projects yourself into the shoes of the characters you are watching, so much of the films real depth will go unnoticed.

And sound really does make this film live, or quite often the lack of sound. Silence is one of the scariest things you can ever hear, as paradoxical as that seems. Kurosawa perhaps knows just how unusual silence actually is in our lives and when it occurs in his films, the effect is haunting. And it also the abruptness of sound in his films. A crescendo of tension in the audio can just suddenly cut off into silence with a change of scene or angle. In many ways it is subtle sound design like this that keeps the viewer on edge and off guard.

Visually, no KK film would be complete with out decrepit buildings in which to fill with shadows, but also this film is incredibly green, being set in a forest. So much of the film isn't in the dark but that doesn't seem to make a difference. The beauty of a KK suspense piece is that it knows that noises and the dark are just cheap thrills. A horror film doesn't need to have them to get under your skin and into your mind, and Loft certainly did that for me.

Is it scary? Well unless you are of very sensitive disposition, I would say that it is atmospheric, mesmerising and macabre; and ends up in a place quite different to where it starts out. It is a difficult film to classify only because it was made by KK. The film is full of his various trademarks, including awkward tonal shifts mid movie, and manipulation of perception and reality. But it works for this film, though you might not think so at first.

Loft is a film that left with me with the sensation that what I had just witnessed was so much more than what I had managed to surmise from it. It had the aftertaste of something allegorical, that had me feeling that I had understood the message even though I couldn't put into words what it was. It is a film that expects a lot from the viewer, however, if you put in the effort and just let the film draw you along into its dark and twisted logic, Loft is a very rewarding film.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa once said that the ghosts in his films are very Japanese, in that they often don't do anything. Just the fact that they are in these people's lives is horrible enough.