School teacher Yamasawa (Tsutomu Yamazaki) spends the summer of 1913 wandering the mountainous countryside of Japan, where he hopes he may find a sign of his colleague and best friend Akira (Gô Katô) who exited the city and disappeared into the mountains three years prior.
As fate would have it, our hero finds himself in a drought-stricken town where there is so little water that a woman kindly shoots her breast milk directly in Yamasawa’s eye in order to remove some dirt stuck there. Classic drought town, am I right?
Anyway Yamasawa learns quickly that the town is located next to a pond… the eponymous Demon Pond in fact, and once past the town to the plateau above, there sits a cabin, a giant bell, and plenty of water. Along with the cabin, Yamasawa discovers the shy and reserved Yuri (legendary kabuki actor Tamasaburô Bandô) who’s husband… who just so happens to be Akira as fate would have it… has been charged with ringing the bell everyday to keep the demons in the pond at bay which in turn keeps the town below from being flooded.
However, the townsfolk think that the bell is the source of their dismay, and take it upon themselves to offer a sacrifice to end the reign of terror, and they pick Yuri, but what connection does she have to the Dragon Princess (also Bandô) who lives under the pond… a lovelorn woman surrounded by her court of oni, yokai, samurai warriors, and anthropomorphized animals?!
Weaving in and out of the “modern” world and a realm of heightened reality, Demon Pond becomes more than just a film, but rather a unique experience that is equal parts fairy tale, allegory of man and nature’s tenuous co-existence, and romance.
Director Masahiro Shinoda, a leading visionary of Japanese New Wave cinema during the ’60s and ’70s, pulls out all the visual tricks to make the above possible including utilizing natural locations, miniatures, elaborate costuming, and surreal, stagey sets. That last bit makes sense as Demon Pond is based on a Kabuki play by Izumi Kyōka (adapted here by screenwriters Haruhiko Mimura and Tsutomu Tamura) and the purposefully unrealistic environs utilized at times truly make it feel as if this tale takes place somewhere between normalcy and dream.
The ethereal performance by Bandô is an absolute gem in a sea of riches, and his portrayal of Yuri and the Dragon Princess is absolutely mesmerizing and only adds to the oft fever dream proceedings, and to see the actor ply their craft among all of the psychotronic trappings of the narrative, set to the experimental Moog synthesizer score from composer Isao Tomita, is a thing of outré wonder.
Speaking of Bandô, both he and Shinoda supervised the 4K transfer utilized by Criterion for this release, and the end result features plenty of rich detail, vivid color, and natural film grain… but that can be a double-edged sword at times as the illusion of some of the film’s absolutely beautiful practical effects takes a dent due to the clarity of image.
As for special features on this release, things are relegated to the included Blu-ray edition of Demon Pond and include an interview with film scholar Dudley Andrew in which he discusses the play the picture is based on (and director Shinoda’s relationship with the theater), and a piece on the film’s special effects and their creator Nobuo Yajima courtesy of author Fabien Mauro.
Additionally this release contains an insert featuring an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson.
A one-of-a-kind fantasy masterpiece, Demon Pond needs to be experienced by lovers of bizarre fairy tale romances with a folklore twist… and who isn’t one of those?
