8. Hoichi The Earless Playing The Biwa In Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan
Kwaidan is a Japanese omnibus movie, broken up into vignettes like Dreams, with four distinct ghost stories. The best of the four is called Hoichi The Earless, a segment that is focused on the titular biwa player. A biwa is a Japanese string instrument, which sounds kind of like a harsher and more discordant version of a mandolin. Hoichi is a blind man working at a Buddhist temple who recounts the history of the area through song, and it is implied that his lack of sight leads him to have an enhanced sense of sound, allowing him to be an excellent biwa player and singer. The segment is loaded with great musical moments, but the scene that made it on to this list is at the very beginning of Hoichi The Earless. Hoichi recounts the tale of a samurai battle fought in the ocean while it is visually captured with highly expressionistic and colorful sets. Once again the full scene isn't on Youtube, but the song that is played along with some stills can be seen here. The violent blows and the breaking waves are highlighted with the harsh breakdowns of the melody, the history depicted in the Japanese paintings shown in the film are being brought to life by the song. As the story progresses, the losers of the sea battle become ghosts that require Hoichi's songs to re-enter the world. They are dependent on the sound, the songs literally become a spiritual bridge between worlds. Kwaidan suggests that not only can there be a life after death, we can access it through art.