Friday 30 October 2015

Tunnel for Halloween

Swainsley Tunnel on the Manifold Way path

Question for Halloween: why are tunnels so spooky?  There are some Freudian answers to this I suppose, but it gets complicated.

My favourite 'ghost' scene' from a movie occurs in Kurosawa's Dreams, which is surely one of the most imaginative films of all time.   In the scene, some soldiers - in strict march formation, their boots clacking loudly, unseen by the main character - emerge from the darkness of a tunnel.  The twist is that the soldiers are ghosts, but they don't actually know it.   That premise is scary enough, but the tunnel (as Kurosawa knew) is the key element.


Swainsley Tunnel, should you care to walk it (!), is on the Manifold Way path.

2 comments:

  1. It certainly looks like something you'd expect a ghoul to show up out of.

    The ghost soldiers notion reminds me of paintings by the artist William Longstaff. He did several monuments at night, including Menin Gate and Vimy Ridge, with ghost soldiers rising up from the earth, as paintings.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks. I will chase up that painter I think

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