Onibaba (1964)

Beware the grass bandits! Shot in the Inba swamp in Japan's Chiba prefecture, Onibaba, meaning "demon hag," follows the lives of two women surviving, stealing, and killing in a susuki field, or pampas-grass field, in the 14th century. Director Kaneto Shindô was inspired by a Buddhist parable he heard as a child where Buddha punishes a spiteful old woman by fusing a mask to her face.

“My eye, or rather the camera’s eye, is fixed to view the world from the very lowest level of society," Shindô said in an interview, "…if you have to look at society through the eyes of those placed on its bottom level, you cannot escape the fact that you must experience and perceive everything with a sense of the political struggle between classes.”

Struggle, both political and personal, saturates every moment of Onibaba. War leaves vulnerable people behind, but some of those people find a strength they never knew they had...or madness! Along with being a compelling tale of survival, Onibaba is just plain beautiful to look at. The black and white contrast turns the endless sea of grass into a deadly maze. Every actor brings a performance that defies belief, exposing the audience to a world that feels forbidden to someone from our time. This film is beneath the underworld. A place where gravity turns and everything is upside down. The abyss of the abyss.

This...is Onibaba.