AllMovie

While not as unnerving as Cure or as well-drawn as Charisma, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Séance is, among other things, an exploration of free will versus fate, a questioning look at the paranormal, and a gripping thriller to boot. Kurosawa refines his already austere cinematic style into something graceful and elegant; few directors since Kenji Mizoguchi have used such devices as the pan with such aplomb. The result is a film that quietly overtakes the audience with its profoundly creepy atmosphere, rather than flogging viewers with cheap thrills. Kurosawa laces the movie with delicious irony: Junco is undone not by her role as a medium -- a generic refuge of a charlatan -- but by her ambition and vanity. As happens in several of his films, however, Kurosawa never quite pushes these ironies and philosophical questionings through to a satisfying conclusion. Koji Yakusho, who seems to be in every film to come out of Japan since 1997, convincingly plays Katsuhiko as a bumbling regular Joe who is pushed to his psychological limits, while Jun Fubuki is equally good as a fragile housewife turned accidental Lady MacBeth. While lacking the punch of one of Kurosawa's best works, Séance is a spooky film that lingers in the mind long after the lights have gone up.