By Keri O’Shea
It’s so often the case that, when I sit down to watch a Japanese film, I find that it’s based on an extensive manga and/or gaming series of which I have no knowledge whatsoever. It’s been the case with filmmakers I know reasonably well – such as Takashi Miike (or at least as well as Western audiences can keep up with the extent of what he’s up to, anyway) – and also with filmmakers whose work is unfamiliar to me altogether, such as the director of Fatal Frame, Mari Asato. Whilst Mari made the possibly-recognisable Ju-on: Black Ghost five years prior to Fatal Frame, I confess it never appealed. The original Ju-on is a masterpiece of its kind, but many of its elements – along with those of the Ring movies – quickly set the precedent for pastiche, with long-haired girl ghosts soon losing their capacity to shock.
Fatal Frame is, first and foremost, a pleasant surprise in that it’s a supernatural movie, but it altogether omits the dreaded long-haired children leaping out on its protagonists. In fact, this film’s spin on the supernatural is mysterious throughout, as it appears to all intents and purposes that one of the living is somehow haunting the living (though this turns out to be the basis for a twist in the tale). This film is also well-constructed enough to present its – admittedly gentle – terrors with ne’er a jump scare nor a hideous-sudden-violin-screech necessary, making it a pleasantly subtle little yarn, avoiding many of the pitfalls which seem to be on the must-do checklist for so many directors in the East and the West. So far, so welcome – and there are other commendable aspects, too.
For one, if I said that the film is set in a Catholic all girl’s school, a school run by nuns no less, and that the girls at the school are mysteriously afflicted by haunting and disappearance via a lesbian crush followed by a kiss, then you’d probably raise an eyebrow and assume that this is nothing more than exploitation fare. Whilst Japan has in the past certainly managed to merge highbrow aesthetics with exploitation elements (see School of the Holy Beast for a stunning example of this), Fatal Frame never crosses into exploitation at all – which is something rather extraordinary, really. In fact, it’s all oddly innocent and – here’s a word I rarely say – sweet, with blossoming crushes between the girls more about coming of age and the delineation of friendship from romance than about sex. And there’s another positive aspect – a film about young girls, from their perspective, in which they are not vixens, victims or dupes. Imagine that!
The plot took a while to settle with me (perhaps because it references a fictional world I never encountered until the film itself) but in a nutshell, the oddly Ophelia-fixated girls’ school attended by Michi (Aoi Morikawa) and her peers is turned upside down by the increasing withdrawal, and then disappearance of the popular but enigmatic Aya (Ayami Nakajô). Aya hasn’t left the school, though, only closed herself off – locking herself in her room and refusing to come out. We the audience know that a disturbing dream is behind her behaviour, but the other girls don’t, not yet. However, they begin to see what appears to be Aya, stalking quietly through the corridors, or occasionally speaking to them, imploring them to ‘lift her curse’. Rumours soon abound that, as in years past, the school is now indeed subject to a curse which affects only girls, a curse linked to a kiss – and as many of the girls seem to have been in love with Aya, they begin to fear her spectral influence, her efforts to draw them close to a photograph of her, and the evidence that bestowing a kiss on it will lead to their disappearance.
Michi, as her friends begin to vanish one by one, strives to get to the bottom of the mystery. Meanwhile Aya – finally compelled to leave her room – joins with Michi, and they learn that Aya’s dream, the photograph and the curse are all closely linked.
Whilst the plot exposition which then takes place can be congratulated in many ways for maintaining the steady, slow-burn approach that characterises the hauntings throughout Fatal Frame, it’s probably safe to say that the final elements of the story could have been reined in – particularly in the last half an hour or so, in which things tend towards the ponderous. So, some of the momentum is lost in the end; that said, considering the fact that the film tries so diligently to build then to maintain atmosphere, advancing anything else at this late stage could have been problematic.
For the most part, this is actually an engaging story which kept me intrigued. Aya and Michi’s burgeoning friendship is underpinned by risk and fear, sure, but it is their believability which makes all of this work rather well. The performances are solid and sensitive by turns, and my word, does Mari Asato have an eye for framing a beautiful shot: the scene with the pond full of water-lilies is amazing, for example, but then there’s an abundance of more conventionally creepy locations too. Essentially, there’s evidence of crafting here, and it all makes you feel as if you’re in the company of someone who gets the horror tradition without being a slave to the norm.
So – a ghost story which doesn’t follow convention, a range of female characters who don’t either, shot against an aesthetically-pleasing array of backgrounds and interiors, with noteworthy sound design and moments of deft originality. Yes, there are a few plodding moments at the end, but overall Fatal Frame is an impressive piece of work. I may not be familiar with the novel which inspired the game which created the franchise which led to this film, but it doesn’t seem to matter, nor to take away from the pleasant surprise which Fatal Frame offers.