What an insane film.
I think the most effective techniques Kinugasa used in this movie to convey the unrestrained madness of the patients are the lightning and special effects. Most of the film is submerged in low-key lighting that produces images with high contrast and exposure. It strikes me as interesting that the cells the patients stay in are always brightly lit, but outside in the hallways of the asylum bear little to no light. It’s as if the patients think their cells are the ‘safe place’ they ought to stay in somehow, compared to the dark world outside. Chiaroscuro lighting is a significant characteristic of film noir, and it seems like this film employed this lightning technique too. At several points of the movie, we are confronted with a lingering close-up shot of the custodian’s emotionless face. The lightning in those shots is always shining sharply in his face only. Everything else was bathed in the dark. Nearing the end of the movie, we see rings of light being thrown on the custodian, the outline of his shadow clean and harsh, as he attacked the doctor with a mop.
On the other hand, Kinusaga also used the intercutting of shots between a girl dancing and a drum at the beginning of the film to convey a sense of urgency and to depict the patient’s heightened insanity. Speeding up the intercutting sequences adds to the magnification of the patient’s abnormal behavior. There are also special effects being used to distort the images throughout the movie. I believe this is the director’s intent to show us the patient’s point of view of the world. One example can be found in the scene when the custodian took his mentally unstable wife out of her cell for a walk with their daughter. The wife gazed up at the sky obscured by the branches of the trees, and the image began to warp. This is to tell us that what the patients see is very different from what others see. Superimposition is also an effect used liberally in the movie. As the custodian escaped the asylum with his wife, the images of jail bars and car wheels were superimposed on his face or whatever's going on the screen. This was a great way to let the audience know what the character was thinking at that moment, especially since there was no sound or subtitles to help do the job.
I lack experience in watching silent movies, so it's not a surprise I have difficulty in following the plot. Nevertheless, I do feel like the film succeeds in conveying the unrestrained madness symptomatic of an asylum.
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