Modern Classics series - number 8 : Kairo/ Pulse (2001)

Directed and written by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

"Yûrei ni aitai desu ka? (Do you want to meet a ghost?) "

"Japanese university students investigate a series of suicides linked to an Internet Web cam that promises visitors the chance to interact with the dead."

Another example of the skill of Japanese directors in creating atmospheres within a film that provide the viewer with a far greater dread than any amount of CGI severed limbs and gore can ever provide.

There's a sense of dislocation that runs throughout this film - none of the characters seem to be anchored in the moment, they appear to float through scenes as if they were already ghosts or spirits and the dialogue is largely superficial.

Kurowasa takes the viewer by the hand and introduces them to a world where the dead walk freely among us and (literal) red tape is used to keep them at arms length. Having made that leap he then asks us to accept that people can literally fade away under the burden of their own ennui and sense of hopelessness.

It shares with Ringu (1988) and Chakushin Ari /One Missed Call (2003) the trick of making technology the agent of the horror. Here it's not videotape or mobile phones but the internet itself - it requires the viewer to remember an age where the web wasn't commonplace but rather new and rather strange to many people. One of the characters sits in front of his computer with a book called "How To Get On The Net" and then goes through a slow process of set-up -which should provide a clue as to the time in which the film is set.

There's a few stand-out set pieces : one especially memorable scene has a character pursued by a (ghostly?) woman; he hides behind a sofa and we switch to his point-of-view to see that her feet are no longer visible, implying that she has gone. The next shot is pure genius.

The film is photographed in greys, blues and browns - the "ghosts" seem to be always present, just out of shot or glimpsed in the corner of the eye, as in an impressive scene set in the University library.

The tone is downbeat throughout and the apocalyptic, unresolved ending isn't going to lift your sense of gloom and despair any.

Beautifully made and put together, it's an object example of how to take an idea and build a world around it for the characters to inhabit.

There's a US remake (2006) with Kristen Bell in the lead with is totally lacking in any of the far superior strengths of the original.