In Kuroneko, the haunting companion film to Onibaba (1963)--see July 30--Kaneto Shindo engages himself even more fully in a netherworld of demons, violence and sexuality. From a long, quiet--too quiet--prelude, the film moves abruptly to violence and sustains a frightening and suspenseful pace throughout. Set in 12th century Japan, it tells of two women, living in an isolated hut, who are raped and murdered by a marauding band of samurai warriors. Returning in human and feline form, the women set out to avenge their deaths. As fate would have it, the young warrior chosen to exorcise these malevolent spirits who prey on samurai is Gintoki, the husband of the younger woman and the son of the elder. Within this hallucinatory atmosphere, Kuroneko, like Onibaba before it, remains a pointed condemnation of Japan's feudal past and, in its weird way, a celebration of the common people's immense energy for survival--in any form. "My sympathies," Shindo has said, "are expressed through the peasant mother...and her daughter-in-law.... My eyes, or rather the camera's eye, is fixed to view the world from the lowest level of society, not from the top" (in Joan Mellon, Voices from the Japanese Cinema).