The Revengeful Spirit of Eros: A messy but cool 1930s silent flick

So, is The Revengeful Spirit of Eros worth your time today?

If you're the kind of person who likes to hunt down grainy silent movies just to see what 1930s Tokyo looked like, then yes, absolutely.

But if you need a fast plot or literal ghosts, you’re probably gonna hate it. It's not that kind of movie at all.

I went into this thinking it was a horror film because of the title. It's not. Eros refers to love, and the 'spirit' is more about how past romances come back to bite you in the neck.

The whole thing feels a bit like Chained to the Past but with more stylish hats.

Satoko Date is in this, and she is basically the queen of the 'Modern Girl' (moga) look. Her hair is this perfect, sharp bob that looks like it could cut glass.

She has this way of looking at the male lead, Hikaru Hoshi, that makes him look like a total idiot. Which, to be fair, his character kind of is.

There is a scene early on where they are sitting in a cafe. The lighting is weirdly dark, and you can barely see their coffee cups, but the tension is everywhere.

The writing is by Kōgo Noda, who eventually became the main writer for Yasujirō Ozu. You can see him playing with ideas here that he’d use later in much better movies.

It’s a bit messy, though. The editing jumps around in a way that made me wonder if some frames were just lost to time or if the editor had a very long lunch break.

One reaction shot of Ichirō Tsukida lingers so long it actually becomes funny. He just stares. And stares. 😐

I found myself thinking about The Forbidden Room while watching the indoor scenes. There's this cramped, heavy feeling to the rooms that makes the characters feel trapped.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Revengeful Spirit of Eros (1930) through its definitive frames.

The movie gets noticeably better once it stops trying to be a serious tragedy and just lets the actors be dramatic. Silent acting is such a weird art form when you really look at it.

There’s a lot of hand-wringing. Like, a lot of it.

I noticed that the film stock is really beat up in certain parts. It adds this flickery, ghost-like quality to the images that actually fits the title better than the plot does.

At one point, there's a sequence with a letter being read. It’s about 30 seconds too long, and I started looking at the wallpaper in the background instead of reading the intertitles.

The wallpaper was actually pretty interesting. Very Art Deco.

If you’ve seen Fresh Paint, you know how these early silent experiments can feel a bit wobbly. This one is no different.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it has this mood that sticks with you. It’s the mood of a world that was changing way too fast for the people living in it.

I think I liked the idea of the movie more than the actual execution. But I’m still glad I watched it late at night with a big cup of tea.

The ending is... well, it just kind of happens. It doesn't wrap everything up in a neat bow, which I actually appreciated.

Didja notice?

• The way Hikaru Hoshi holds his cigarette like it's a weapon.
• That one extra in the background of the street scene who definitely didn't know they were being filmed.
• The subtitles I found had a typo in the third act, but it somehow made the scene more emotional?
• Satoko Date’s eyebrows. Seriously. They are perfect.
• The shadows on the wall during the big argument look like actual monsters.

It's a weird little relic. It reminds me a bit of The Craving in how it handles obsession, but with a more Japanese flavor.

You can almost feel the movie trying to convince you that this romance is the most important thing in the world. It doesn't quite get there, but it tries hard.

If you want something that feels 'complete,' go watch something else. This is for the dreamers and the film nerds who don't mind a bit of dust on their movies. 📽️

I’ll probably forget the plot in a week, but I’ll remember the way the light hit the smoke in that cafe scene for a long time.