Jigokuhen: A Portrait of Hell
Shirô Toyoda has created a truly horrific, haunting masterwork that is Jigokuhen, and indeed like its title, this is a portrait of Hell put to film. Inspired from a short story by Akutagawa Ryûnosuke (Rashômon, the story that Akira Kurosawa’s film of the same name is based on.) This film covers many many topics, many themes of different nature are intertwined but they are held by a common string so to speak, and that is the ego.
At its heart, this tells the story of a battle between egos, that of the court painter Yoshihide (Nakadai Tatsuya) and the ruthless monarch Lord Horikawa (Nakamura Kinnosuke). It’s also important to mention that the artist is of Korean descent, as this plays an important role in the plot. The tale takes place in what I believe is the late Heian period (794 AD–1185). Lord Horikawa’s rule is failing and the people are suffering while he and the ruling class live a life of ease and decadence. As it is typically with such a morally and physically corrupt class, they are separated from the reality of the people. More specifically, they isolate themselves in their little small paradises in mansions. This is the driving force that pushes Yoshihide, the artist, to rise up against his lord in an artistic rebellion. Yoshihide is fascinated by what the ruling class calls ugly. He declares that to Horikawa numerous times, saying that a lord like him can never understand and see the beauty in this “ugliness”.
Throughout the course of the film, both these characters are dissected and stripped naked, until we eventually see how they are both at fault and are full of arrogance. There’s always this tension as this metaphorical battle between them rages on. This battle shows us the hate in their hearts, and this hate is manifested as racism, and both sides suffer from this disease. Both Yoshihide and Horikawa see their bloodlines as superior to the other, and they both use a version of history to support their claims. Yoshihide claims that Koreans brought science and education to Japan, while Horikawa boasts about how Koreans were merely slaves. This is not only relevant to the time of the writing of the novel (1918) but also to post-war Japan, and even more relevant today, it’s also a global topic. The plight that is in this nation is simply caused by the ruthless tyrants that rule and exploit the peasant class regardless of their race. This is also apparent in the plot and the visuals as Yoshihide draws inspiration from this suffering.
This is where the artist’s hypocrisy is exposed as he himself is drawing and benefiting from the suffering of the people to create art to please (or displease) Horikawa. In one scene, the painter subjects one of his servants to torture just to be able to capture the horror in his eyes so he can use it in his art. Having said that, another theme emerges, which is the sacrifice of the artist and how much he is willing to sacrifice pieces of himself in order to create this commissioned painting. That painting is, as the title says, a portrait of Hell, Yoshihide thinks he, unlike his privileged lord, can see Hell and therefore he can paint it, but he is proven wrong because he too is privileged and he has to experience Hell himself. Yoshihide’s daughter, Yoshika (Yôkô Naitô), is also present here, and there’s a little romance subplot involving her, but sadly, most of the time she’s used as a tool to give more depth to her father. This is also a ghost story and, above all, a horror story. This is horror both in the traditional sense and also in an existential sense for the artist and his place in the world.
From the opening seconds, the bombastic soundtrack grabs us and sets the tone for the rest of the film, and it’s done by none other than Akutagawa Yasushi, the son of Akutagawa Ryûnosuke himself. The music is big and encompassing, with loud orchestral sweeps and a haunting main theme. This is crucial to many of the dramatic scenes, especially the climax. The film wouldn’t be as effective and impactful without the cinematography of Yamada Kazuo. The colors are essential to show the beauty where necessary, but more importantly, to show the hellish nature at the heart of the story. It is filled with beautiful wide shots with very strong colours. There’s an obvious emphasis on the reds especially.
Images are also superimposed to create correlation between characters and ideas but also to add some supernatural elements. There are also plenty of tilted camera angles that are pretty common in 70s exploitation films.
It’s true that the combination of all these elements made the film what it is, but the engine at the centre of it all is the acting. It is the legendary Tatsuya Nakadai. His facial expressions, his eyes, and his entire physique are so expressive that it’s near impossible to look away when he’s present.
He acts with his entire body, and in this role, he is an anguished artist, but also an artist in rebellion and a father who loves his daughter; all of these aspects of his character are clearly visible and beautifully nuanced. Both Kinnosuke Nakamura and Yôkô Naitô give great performances, but they are shadowed by the one and only Nakadai.
The film goes beyond genre conventions of period films, which makes it unclassifiable. It’s a drama within a horror story within a Kaidan ghost story. Add to that a very deep and nuanced commentary on Japanese society at the time, but it also has a global nature. The common class struggle, racism, hate, it’s all the same everywhere. This couldn’t be more relevant in today’s world. Given the international context, this is as powerful as the day it came out some 50 years ago. Sadly, our reality is still the same, but the film is not all hopeless. Sacrifice is always rewarded with victory, it surpasses the line between life and death.
