Movie Box featuring Demon Pond and About Dry Grasses

Demon Pond

by Masahiro Shinoda

Japanese New Wave renegade Masahiro Shinoda transforms a classic Kabuki tale with his own extravagant visual style in this dimension-shattering folk-horror fantasia. When a lone traveler (Tsutomu Yamazaki) stumbles upon a remote, drought-stricken village, he finds himself engulfed in a whirlpool of myth, mystery, and magic: in a nearby pond reside spirits who hold the fate of the town’s inhabitants—including lovers Akira (Go Kato) and Yuri (Kabuki legend Tamasaburo Bando, who also plays the ethereal princess reigning over the water)—in their hands. Set to the swirling strains of electronic-music pioneer Isao Tomita’s synth score, Demon Pond blends theatrical artifice with cinematic surrealism for an aquatic-apocalyptic fable of human love and folly caught in the current of nature’s wrath.

About Dry Grasses

by Bilge Ceylan

Samet is a teacher who used to live in Istanbul but has been assigned to a post at a remote village in Eastern Anatolia for years. He comes back from holidays for the winter term. He and his co-worker and roommate Kenan are soon accused of inappropriate behavior by two female pupils. To Samet’s dismay, one of them is Sevim, who has been so far a protégée of his. In parallel, both Samet and Kenan meet together, and then separately, Nuray, a teacher in a neighboring village. The latter has been the victim of a terrorist explosion some time before and misses a leg. Together they discuss the possibilities and limits of living in the region. While Kenan and Nuray seem to fall in love, Samet’s attitude changes and he too begins to take interest in Nuray despite his first impression.