Which films
do you like in the fantasy and horror genre? In the Japanese issue of Vogue
magazine, you mentioned Tobe Hooper's Spontaneous Combustion.

Hooper's film is
definitely one of the ones that I really like. What I really appreciate about
him is that he seems to study and research old traditional horror movies very
well. But then, he manages to adapt them to contemporary settings. I also like
to study and research the old films very thoroughly. But then, you can't just
remake them. You have to think how to adapt or adjust them to a contemporary
setting. So when I watched Spontaneous Combustion, I started to think
that maybe this guy had the same idea about making horror movies as I had. So
I feel something in common with him.

If you look at
the old ghost or horror movies, there's always a graveyard, a cemetery, or an
old castle. And that's where the ghosts appear. But there is nothing surprising
about that anymore. So you have to think about that in a normal modern town,
where people don't expect ghosts to appear. So how can we have them appear in
a setting like that, and how can we make that scary?

A lot of people
would consider the idea of a ghost story as being very childish, but I prefer
to think of it as it relates to death. And this has been a very difficult and
deep theme for thousands of years in religion and philosophy. People have thought
for a long time about the question of death and they still haven't come up with
an answer. So if I think about that, maybe an easy image to use to express death
is that of a ghost.

So if you have
this modern town setting, with modern houses, and computers -- things which
people don't associate with death at all -- no matter how modernist you are,
you won't be able to escape. Even if you try to deny it and forget about it,
it will always be there.

Is that what
you wanted to do with Kairo?

Yes, although I
feel it's not up to me to devise the perfect solution on the subject. But still,
if you ask me what is the function of ghosts are nowadays, that would be my
conclusion.

Can you tell
us the story of Kairo, even though you yourself said it's complicated?

To put it simply,
ghosts start appearing in a town for no apparent reason. And people around the
hero start disappearing! (laughs) So he has to come up with a way to get the
ghosts out of town!

And how is the
Internet related to the ghost story?

It is a medium
where ghosts appear and information about them spreads. And it comes out of
that by performing some sort of ceremony, you can make ghosts come out of the
web ... In the second half, it becomes more and more clear that actually the
Internet is a connection with the beyond, the realm of the dead.

I remember you
saying in an interview that you weren't very familiar with the Internet. Does
it mean you feel disconnected from the young generations who use the Internet
all the time?

It's true that
I don't use it much myself, but I think it's a great means to get information,
and maybe I should use it a lot. But still, if you talk about human relationships
that are made over the Internet, I don't think you can call them normal human
relationships. If you want to deepen your relationship with another human being,
I don't think it is an appropriate means.

If you ask me why,
in a real human relationship, even if you don't meet each other, even if you
are in different places, it's still possible to think about each other. In your
head, you can imagine the other person. But with relationships over the Internet,
while you're doing it, it may be fine, but once you cut this connection, there
is nothing that you can imagine.

What was the
most challenging thing about making Kairo?

The most challenging
thing was that in order to create a new kind of ghost, I had to create a new
story. That was perhaps the most difficult part. If you look at Ko-rei,
for example, the ghost is the ghost of a little girl, if you look at Ring,
the ghost of Sadako used to be a young woman. In those films, it's very clear
where the ghosts come from. They used to be human beings. Now, in Kairo
you don't have that at all. You don't know what or who these ghosts were in
previous lives. You don't know why they have become ghosts. They don't want
to get a revenge, they don't have a grudge that is based on their previous lives
as human beings. There's nothing like that at all. They just appear without
any reason. And to integrate that into the story was a big challenge.

In Mamoru Oshii's
animated film Ghost in the Shell, a new notion of "ghost" is
associated with that of the human soul. Would you agree that one of the most
mysterious ghosts of human history is the human "soul"?

That's a difficult
question! (laughs) I would say that even though a ghost may take a human shape
when you visualize it, it's definitely not human. Human beings, even when they
don't speak the same language, can still communicate because they do share the
same "soul." But you definitely cannot understand or comprehend a
ghost. It's a completely different entity. And in that sense, it resembles death,
because death is also something you cannot comprehend.

I remember you
saying that with Ko-rei (Seance) your main intention was not to scare
people. Have you at last changed your mind and done just that with Kairo?

(smiles) Yes, it
was my intention this time to make a scary movie! It's probably more complex
than Ko-rei as well, and it's a difficult theme. So I don't know really
if this scariness will be conveyed to the audience efficiently or not, as it
hasn't been released in Japan yet [This interview was held in February 2001,
a few weeks before the release of the film.] So I haven't had any feedback from
the specialists but my intention was to make a very scary film.

Did you show
the film to your family and friends, and were they frightened?

A lot of the people
who have seen the film say it's quite scary but they think it's difficult and
they don't understand the story very well. But then again, there are a lot of
liars in my circle, so I don't know if I can believe them or not! (laughs) Some
of my friends may say that this is the best work that I've ever done, but maybe
it is still a failure. Sometimes my friends deliberately want to confuse me,
so I shouldn't draw any confusion from what they say! (laughs) As for my wife,
she knows what's going on from the script stage, so you can't compare her reaction
to somebody else's.

The Japanese
movie landscape was recently shaken by an incredible film, Battle Royale
by Kinji Fukasaku. I know you saw the film, with Mr Fukasaku himself. Can you
tell us how you appreciate this film?

Actually, I enjoyed
that film a lot! There was a big debate in the Japanese media about whether
this film had a bad influence on children or not. I definitely don't think so.
There is a lot of violence in this movie, but I think, even if it's a strange
way of putting it, that it's a healthy violence, one which produces a healthy
feeling. I think the director has done something very original.

Akihiko Shiota,
one of your colleagues, said that what he appreciated about you was your ability
to make personal films even within a commercial frame. Do you think you will
be able to maintain that ability over the years, or do you sometimes feel you
might lose it one day?

Shiota is a very
good friend of mine, but like all my friends, he is also a liar, so don't believe
what he said! (laughs) The combination of the two is something that I would
really like to make even more efficiently in the future. If you ask me why,
at the time when my films were being shown only in Japan, I felt that there
were very few people who could appreciate both. There was a stiff separation
between the commercial and the personal. But since my films have been shown
worldwide and traveled around many festivals, I've found that actually, a lot
of people do appreciate the combination of both, and that's why I feel now I
have more confidence to continue the combination of both.

Just for Filmfestivals.com,
what would be your three favorite movies ever?

(laughs) If I have
to answer this question properly, you have to give me three years to think about
it! (smiles) But the three popping up in my head are Spontaneous Combustion
by Tobe Hooper, The Ballad of Cable Hogue by Sam Peckinpah, and Histoire
du Cinéma by Jean Luc Godard.

Robin
Gatto