February 5, 1965 [Onibaba, Woman in the Dunes]

Twenty years after the War and after the Bomb and I'm afraid that the madness that has happened is happening to Japan. Not that madness knows boundaries: the American thriller bares a grin as big as Bette Davis', cackling as we ask her whatever happened to Baby Jane—while Brando angst and Frankie Avalon fun surf side by side. But I keep seeing beautiful terrors in Japanese cinema, the open countryside a dark hole, as in Onibaba, where hapless fleeing samurai are dispatched by the young woman and the old woman trying to survive the feudal war without men—as their thighs part and their heads tilt back, ready to feed appetites. Their nest floats on a tall grass sea that ripples like King Kong's fur, invisible hands shaping it—while the Woman in the Dunes, a preying insect, also waits for a man to fall into a hole—this one of sand, threatening to fill, always demanding care—and the demon-mask in one matches the woman's avid frown in the other, until I can't tell which picture I'm watching, they're all so slippery and awful and sad, sad as the starvation and  isolation of the women driving them to pounce, jazz music jittering in the background—and everyone shedding clothes like cicada shells, changing into something that wishes it could fly—but trapped, their human skin discarded for something better at survival.