It's too bad, because director Kiyoshi Kurosawa serves up an at times stunningly beautiful array of images in this tale of artistic and romantic tragedy.
At his very first meeting with Stephane, the photographer obsessed with making daguerreotypes through an old-style process entailing plenty of painstaking labor, Jean, his newly hired assistant, catches sight of a woman in period costume, standing still as if frozen, at the top of a staircase. Although coming early in the movie, this is a scene that foreshadows his eventual doom together with his employer, as they are the only two who can see the spirit in the old house.
The really outstanding thing about "Daguerreotype" is the cinematography, which was the responsibility of Alexis Kavyrchine. The restrained lighting, the subdued coloring, and the composition of the frames (often forming triptych tableaux) in interior scenes are exquisite. I found the pacing and the way the camera dwelt on certain images to be perfect (although I tend to like a slow pace). They were likewise effective for building suspense at certain intervals. And the actors seemed adequate enough. Rousseau's Marie is alluring without trying, and Rahim, whose Jean is an utterly ordinary fellow, suddenly shines in his final soliloquy in the car at the end.
For me, the narrative recalls some stories written in the original daguerreotype days, and specifically Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" and Poe's "The Oval Portrait." The former involves a similar trio of a twisted scientist, his plant-enchanted daughter, and a student who falls in love with her but ends up killing her when trying to save her, while in the latter an artist slowly saps his lovely wife of her life force by painting it into his portrait of her, such that she dies with the finishing touches. A more definite source is from the Orient: "The Peony Lantern," a "kaidan" translated and introduced into Japan in the 17th century from "New Tales Under the Lamplight," a Ming dynasty collection of Chinese ghost stories. In this tale, which remains very well-known in Japan, a young man carries on with a belle who is actually dead. The detail of a friend meeting Jean by chance and commenting how pale and sickly he looks that appears in the movie is right from this story. Since Kurosawa is credited as the writer, I, for one, could not believe he did not borrow, if unconsciously, this and other elements from "The Peony Lantern" in depicting Jean's affair with Marie's specter.
The intertwining of threads in the spirit of such precedent tales works wonderfully, and there is no question about Kurosawa's expertise in creating horrific moments, all in the late '90s Japanese style sans gore, grotesquerie, screams, violence, eerie music, computer graphics, and the other earmarks of conventional horror movies. The ghostly apparitions are handled skillfully - or better, artistically - while managing to give this reviewer goosebumps in most cases.
Nevertheless, the movie was unfortunately flawed by needless additions to the old story lines noted above. The prospective real estate deal that turns Jean's head with the promise of a hefty commission distracts us from the classic themes, dispels the haunted mood, and changes our view of his personality for the worse. On top of this, it makes for a messy conclusion that falls out of keeping with the character of the film up to that point. That's a pity, for the makings of a masterpiece were there. But these are still enough to make this film worth seeing in spite of the blunders. 7-point-5.
At his very first meeting with Stephane, the photographer obsessed with making daguerreotypes through an old-style process entailing plenty of painstaking labor, Jean, his newly hired assistant, catches sight of a woman in period costume, standing still as if frozen, at the top of a staircase. Although coming early in the movie, this is a scene that foreshadows his eventual doom together with his employer, as they are the only two who can see the spirit in the old house.
The really outstanding thing about "Daguerreotype" is the cinematography, which was the responsibility of Alexis Kavyrchine. The restrained lighting, the subdued coloring, and the composition of the frames (often forming triptych tableaux) in interior scenes are exquisite. I found the pacing and the way the camera dwelt on certain images to be perfect (although I tend to like a slow pace). They were likewise effective for building suspense at certain intervals. And the actors seemed adequate enough. Rousseau's Marie is alluring without trying, and Rahim, whose Jean is an utterly ordinary fellow, suddenly shines in his final soliloquy in the car at the end.
For me, the narrative recalls some stories written in the original daguerreotype days, and specifically Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" and Poe's "The Oval Portrait." The former involves a similar trio of a twisted scientist, his plant-enchanted daughter, and a student who falls in love with her but ends up killing her when trying to save her, while in the latter an artist slowly saps his lovely wife of her life force by painting it into his portrait of her, such that she dies with the finishing touches. A more definite source is from the Orient: "The Peony Lantern," a "kaidan" translated and introduced into Japan in the 17th century from "New Tales Under the Lamplight," a Ming dynasty collection of Chinese ghost stories. In this tale, which remains very well-known in Japan, a young man carries on with a belle who is actually dead. The detail of a friend meeting Jean by chance and commenting how pale and sickly he looks that appears in the movie is right from this story. Since Kurosawa is credited as the writer, I, for one, could not believe he did not borrow, if unconsciously, this and other elements from "The Peony Lantern" in depicting Jean's affair with Marie's specter.
The intertwining of threads in the spirit of such precedent tales works wonderfully, and there is no question about Kurosawa's expertise in creating horrific moments, all in the late '90s Japanese style sans gore, grotesquerie, screams, violence, eerie music, computer graphics, and the other earmarks of conventional horror movies. The ghostly apparitions are handled skillfully - or better, artistically - while managing to give this reviewer goosebumps in most cases.
Nevertheless, the movie was unfortunately flawed by needless additions to the old story lines noted above. The prospective real estate deal that turns Jean's head with the promise of a hefty commission distracts us from the classic themes, dispels the haunted mood, and changes our view of his personality for the worse. On top of this, it makes for a messy conclusion that falls out of keeping with the character of the film up to that point. That's a pity, for the makings of a masterpiece were there. But these are still enough to make this film worth seeing in spite of the blunders. 7-point-5.
- J. Koetting.