It seems counterintuitive that words like absurd and ostentatious are flattering descriptors for a film and yet, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House (1977) is exactly that. Obayashi betrays narrative film conventions and embraces artifice, using flashy transitions, over-the-top special effects and fantastical mise-en-scène without restraint. The cast consists of stock school-girl characters with names that reflect their primary personality trait (Gorgeous is the beautiful one, Kung Fu knows martial arts, Prof is the smart one, etc), the acting is cliched and a little comical, and the film follows flimsy, childlike logic that lets objects levitate, spin, and attack. On paper, it sounds like child’s play, antithetical to what serious art should be and yet, its overbearing artifice prevails, House was a success at release and still maintains a cult following to this day, solidified in the canon by its addition to the Criterion Collection in 2010. What makes House so effective and charming?
More than an “it’s-so-bad-it’s-good” movie, House appeals to sensibilities outlined in Susan Sontag’s famous 1964 essay “Notes on Camp”. In the essay, Sontag discusses the appeal of artifice and exaggeration and the works’ ambition and naiveté that can be applied to House. Taking inspiration from his preteen daughter, Obayashi embraces childlike illogic in his film, taking and fulfilling absurd ideas to the fullest with uninhibited use of formal elements— no color is off-limits, time is malleable, daydreams are acted out in full-costume, faces and people can be broken, fractured, or transformed, and no one is safe. The difference between House succeeding in its absurdity is its commitment and authenticity in fulfilling its childlike visions as opposed to a film that demands to be taken seriously without delivering the necessary substance. House is energetic, vivid, and funny, weaving in slapstick comedy and fun sequences when it pleases, all while executing its scares to colorful psychedelic extremes.
House begins with Gorgeous, a young, motherless girl who turns down a vacation with her dad and his new mistress in favor of visiting a distant aunt’s home. She invites six classmates to a home that, unbeknownst to them, is haunted by a windowed, deceased aunt and an evil cat. The film plays out in typical haunted-house plot, with subtle, suspicious supernatural occurrences escalating into outright terror— the home, powered by the evil cat, begins consuming the girls one-by-one through sentient, malicious furniture bent on eating and attacking them.
All of this is shown with an obscene amount of special effects, sound and absurdity that is both flashy and playful. Objects, body parts, and people slow down, speed up, levitate amidst an energetic score. House doesn’t have a single boring frame— everything seems to be layered with special effects culminating in an exciting, experimental montage, but not mindlessly. The psychedelic, out-of-control formal elements is not a refusal to seriously engage with film, but rather a step forward in exploring the limits of cinema and the human imagination.
Or, more specifically, no girl is safe. Later in the movie, it is revealed that the spirit of Gorgeous’ dead aunt, devasted by her husband’s death during the second World War, fuels the house and eats unmarried girls that arrive. The threat of marriage looms over the film, even from its unassuming, upbeat start. Gorgeous and Fantasy congratulate their teacher on her marriage, which she specifies was arranged. The teacher looks longingly after the girls, as if reminiscing over her youth. Though unhinged in its editing and effects, House gives insight into the subconscious fears of girls and their coming-of-age while making the most out of an active imagination. The threat of domesticity evolves into monstrous household objects that attack and consume the girls in ridiculous, supernatural sequences that are both thrilling and creative, neglecting any constraints to what is likely, sensible or logical— a flurry of mattresses attack Sweet, a piano eats the unsuspecting player, a man turns into a pile of bananas, and so much more. Gorgeous originally wants to vacation alone with her father, like she has always done, but is impeded by his new fiancé. Even at her aunt’s faraway home and accompanied by a clique of friends, she enters a trap that punishes denial and refusal of marriage, instead eating her alive. At the end, not even her father’s fiancé is safe as she shakes the hand of Gorgeous’ ghost, and disintegrates.
Hollywood filmmaking has set conventions, such as the 180-degree rule and the shot-reverse-shot, that prioritizes clear delivery and progression to an audience. These guidelines exist for coherence, ensuring that the audience understands the sequence of events. Though useful, these guidelines restrict film to imitation and immersion when things like lighting, sound, and effects can be manipulated into something more than reality. In the same way fiction reveals truth through imaginary people and plots, film, in its fullest capacity, can utilize artifice in a similar way to disclose images, emotions, and fears that can’t be conceived in concrete reality. Film acts as a window into different worlds and realities created in meticulous montage that, with the progression of technology, has almost no limitations in what it can depict. House is an example of how the human imagination, in all its eccentricities and illogic, can be depicted to the fullest regardless of how much it conforms to reality, logic or everyday physics. While watching an unrestrained, impossibly creative film like House, the magic of movies becomes apparent.
Rather than concerning itself with narrative convention or proper taste, Obayashi listens and accepts his daughter’s unrestricted imagination, weaves in folklore and tradition, and experiments with effects like green screens, overlays, and transitions without restricting himself to a storyboard. The result is a visual delight, a culmination of effort backed by care and a special attention to events, characters and imagery that, in an increasingly utilitarian and commercialized world, could easily be dismissed. At its core, beneath all the effects and colors, House is overwhelmingly sincere, taking into account the historical context of postwar Japan, and including children in the narrative of postwar anxieties. House shows that movies are not restricted to proper imitation of concrete reality but also worlds that before, only existed in our minds.
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