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January 02, 2018

Miss Zombie

Sabu - 2013
Redemption BD Region A

Much of the activity in Miss Zombie takes place at the home of a middle-aged doctor, his wife and young child, a boy who incessantly takes photos with a Polaroid camera. Their house looks looks like large slabs of concrete, more like a mausoleum than a home. It's a fitting location, with Mount Fuji occasionally glimpsed in the distance, for a film that plays with some of the conventions of the zombie genre.

Writer-director Sabu, the pseudonym for Hiroyuki Tanaka, has created a film both elegant and elegiac. Filmed primarily in widescreen black and white, with a five minute burst of color near the end, this is the kind of film that is an unexpected blend of grind house and art house. The viewer is only given hints about a viral infection that has created a number of zombies, who have been herded into cages. Those with a low level of infection have been sold as menial help or pets. Instructions are to feed these domesticated zombies only fruit or vegetables, and absolutely no meat to prevent them from turning feral. A gun is included for preventative measure.

What is really at the heart here is an exploration of family love and loss of identity. Sara, the title character, is employed mainly to clean a stone pathway in front of the house. Much of the soundtrack is of the sounds made by Sara's brushing the stones. Walking with her face cast downward, she is symbolic of those who are exploited in labor and sexually. As she trudges to the storehouse that is her home, children toss rocks at her, while some neighborhood punks think nothing of sticking knives into her shoulder. Sara continues walking, with nights passed looking at a photo of her former self, pregnant, with an unscarred body.

Sara's presence upsets the family dynamics. The son, Kenichi, is brought back to the house dead from drowning in a pond. We don't see the death of Kenichi, but the description evoked for me that moment in James Whale's Frankenstein where the monster tosses the young girl in a pond. The mother, Shizuko begs Sara to bring Kenichi back to life. Among the unforeseen consequences, Sara becomes more human, while Shizuko becomes more physically awkward and eventually inarticulate in her cries.

Sara's final flashback unmistakably recalls Night of the Living Dead, but in other ways Miss Zombie is closer to such films as the Korean The Housemaid or Joseph Losey's The Servant as examinations of class and entitlement. With the current state of Japanese films available for western viewers being what it is, I'm glad to see a belated release by a filmmaker relatively little known to stateside viewers. Certainly, the ending is the most heartbreaking to be seen in a film about the living dead since Duane Jones' brief moment of victory in George Romero's classic.

Posted by Peter Nellhaus at January 2, 2018 10:00 AM