"My eyes," Shindo said, "or rather, the camera's eye, is fixed to view the world from the lowest level of society, not from the top." In Onibaba, his camera is set amidst tall grasses-blowing now left, now right, filling the screen with pure motion and direction. But look closely in the reeds and you will find a society of scavengers, existing on the dregs of feudalism. Two such women eke out an existence by luring wounded samurai to their deaths and selling their armor for food. The women's animal-like existence-wordless, ravenous meals followed by leaden sleep-is interrupted when the younger of the two begins sneaking off with a male neighbor. Her companion dons a terrifying battle mask in a desperate attempt to keep her young accomplice at home, but the mask has a will of its own: she can't remove it. Offscreen, in warring Kyoto, strange things are happening: "Day was night, a horse gave birth to a calf," a traveller reports. On screen, Shindo examines what he calls "the primitive beneath the civilized veneer" of society, integrating into his study elements of horror and the supernatural, a jazz score, and some jarring, you-are-there cinematography.