Eastern Humanity: The Kurosawa
By: DT
“Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.” – Akira Kurosawa
++++++
A select filmography of the works of Akira Kurosawa
Drunken Angel – Set in the seed of post-war Japan, the dynamism of Mifune and Shimura is here conceived: Shimura the hardened M.D., Mifune the young hoodlum whom Shimura’s old dog repentantly sees his younger self in, and whose invincibility is shattered when diagnosed with TB; his affliction an analogy for the crime and corruption that too have infested his life. These two brash, stubborn men as the dirty, stinking, drunken angels; chance for deliverance for both. Solid study, dexterously shot – a stronger entry in Kurosawa’s early period.
Stray Dog – Mifune’s but a rookie in this lynchpin of Kurosawa’s crime forays, falling trap to Tokyo’s grifters on a sweltering day. While a way yet from High and Low’s scorching, watertight procedural, Nora inu holds deft cinematography; its riff of American police investigative giving steady bursts of suspense and morality. More interesting is its embodying the après-guerre social remark on cultural shift toward the Occident: kimono replaced by dress and perm, felons invoking civil rights, packed baseball stadiums, cabarets – more caustic depictions than the same lament by Ozu.
Rashomon – Ford: “You really like rain”. Kurosawa: “Yeah.” Welles said a film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet. Rashomon, this landmark of Nippon film, is poetic cinema, an exemplar of cinematography with Kane. In its kaidan – ambient, celestial, fierce – is also poetic justice: its human palpitations clouded by deceit, pettiness, hypocrisy and cowardice, clashing with feudal codes of honour and fealty; the ruins of Rashōmon gate embodying society thus torn by prejudice and strife, in a bleak yet redemptive sermon.
Seven Samurai – The poetic frames of Rashomon are shed for this archetypal narrative, but to look beyond the more classical montage is to uncover an epic portrait of human nature: the peasantry’s consignment to sufferance (agricultural nihilism) and the search for nobility in a proud, ignoble and dithering society; over time encompassing bandit, samurai and villager alike, and what the real heroes – the seven – have to show for it. All the while, its sheer linearity, and flashes of mastery in its staging, engage – Leone d’Oro or not (d’Argento, rather). {See also: The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960)}.
The Hidden Fortress – Vibrant, sprawling photography within an epic canvas of war and rebellion; jidaigeki mural passing as adventure, yet one of exceptional staging, as forerunner to Kagemusha, Ran. And nevermind Seven Samurai, as Hidden Fortress presents more dynamic look at master-servant relationships between the ruling and feudal classes, in teaming hapless peasants – here vociferous in greed – with their Edo overlords, now towards gracious, fleeting reconcilement. A slender, luxuriant brew of genre, spectacle and social commentariat.
The Bad Sleep Well – Kurosawa’s corporate thriller, rooted in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, whiffs at something rotten in the state of Japan. A jarring and evocative portrayal of corruption in the newly-industrialised, post-war economy, galvanised by Kurosawa’s roving camera along with chilling performances.
Yojimbo – Eternal theme of Kurosawa’s: the middle class’ struggle against corruption, their liberation (or not) by higher wits, valour and ingenuity from ranks on high – samurai seven, hidden gentry, the yojimbo ‘Sanjuro’; each providing the skeleton for his films, and all nuances of inequity, iniquity in between. The appearance of Mifune in each in turn confirms the partnership between him and Kurosawa as one enduring as Eastwood and Leone – Yojimbo’s blueprint included, in which Mancini scoring and wily manoeuvre curry steady stamp and portrait.
Sanjuro – Yojimbo ‘2’ dives into the motions, but precisely feels as if it’s merely going through them: in its duel, corruption motif, even Mifune’s lone warrior – who appears tired still from his first outing – all in perfunctory decoupage of a capitalising sequel – either that, or more a dramatic exercise while Sanjuro goes philosophical, amongst the genteel he comes into seeing him reconsider his scruples. So it’s not Yojimbo, but a sly moralistic exercise as such – if one that does fall somewhat flat, and unevenly, as a genre piece in practice altogether elsewhere.
High and Low – It takes something special to be able to make even a conversation about shoe manufacturing electrifying, let alone the rollercoaster of events that follows; with the film first being a heart-stopping ransom thriller, then a gripping police procedural, before emerging as a searing indictment of Japan’s capitalist society, ramping things up several notches from The Bad Sleep Well. Frequently piercing and never letting up in its entire 2½ hours, it’s simply a powerhouse film.
Red Beard – Akahige’s medical drama may appear as dry subject matter and montage, but becomes steadily engaging in its screenwriting and storytelling, overcoming its sickly portrait of humanity towards a rekindling of honour and compassion amongst ailment and decay, in deeply touching social melodrama – not precluding a superb restraint from Mifune as Red Beard, in his valedictory role with Kurosawa; nor an audacious half-hour flashback sequence – poetically shot to boot – among others. Not dry, then; matured.
Dodesukaden – Kurosawa’s first in colour expresses his fascination with his new lens, in a radical departure for a new decade, and a new phase: a rainbow-junkyard lollapalooza of misfits and flakes, in a motley celebration of life and all its walks, or something like it; its loose, intermingling vignettes and their rambling arcs forming its hyperreal microcosm of society. More typical of Gilliam’s sideshows – decidedly undecided; yet for all its oddity, its art direction and askew pathos remain untouched.
Dersu Uzala – Kurosawa does Mosfilm. Like Dodesukaden, near unrecognisable, if not for Dersu Uzala, the affable pilgrim who induces an unmistakeable humanistic outlook, that remains quintessentially Kurosawa (seems tigers never do change their stripes). His pathos here is unpretentious; his photography, sweeping yet light – a quiet epic, in a way. Its naturalised pace threatens to stretch moments out farther than necessary, but its photoplay – as virtual predecessor to Malick – with the simplicity of its kinship, should not be understated.
Kagemusha – Between the softness of Dersu Uzala and the grandeur of Ran, is the soft grandeur of Kagemusha, in which Kurosawa revisits his old stomping ground in assured return to form, and whose exploration of dynastic feud and class comment (here encompassing its Jean Valjean-esque title figure) remains unfailing in power. Along with its vibrant colour spectrum – energised by the earlier dabbling of Dodesukaden – its precise choreography, captured by elegant long takes, indeed soften its tempo, creating a unique, triumphant blend of on-screen grace and artistry.
Ran – Kurosawa’s Lear transfigures the play into an epic jidaigeki, echoing his enterprise with Macbeth in Throne of Blood. A splendid, distinguished adaptation, and an accomplished piece of filmmaking, period; the mise en scene having an air of such splendour, grace and tragedy. Nakadai lends an imperial presence in front of the camera, while Kurosawa does so behind it, with large-scale set pieces alongside scenes adept in intimating central themes, nuances (‘war begets war’). Well-rounded, fleshed out – truly an inspired translation. {See also: A.K. (Chris Marker, 1985)}.
Rhapsody in August – Reunion, remembrance and reconciliation, of young and old and the Nagasaki generation; with its secluded analogy for Japanese-American bonds, and of time’s cooling effects. A thoughtful penultimate work – gentler, but with a graceful, Ozu-like framing of domesticity and candour that grants fluidity to Kurosawa’s more direct historical didacticism.
Madadayo – One could surmise Madadayo as a parting work entirely self-aware, in its affectionate centering on a retiring, respected sensei ushering in his twilight years. Seeped in a mix of genial, screwball, revelry and nostalgia, with – by this point – an entirely dexterous cinematography to accommodate, conjuring a rapport that, as a boozing, rambling Fellini-esque cavalcade of the ups-and-downs of old age, becomes hard not to partake in. Neglected as swansong, celebration and film.
++++++
“He was such a Japanese filmmaker. Aside from his superb movies about warriors, including Yojimbo and Sanjuro, Kurosawa also told poignant stories of ordinary, contemporary Japanese, some of them nobodies. These films have influenced me greatly with their realism and concern for the common people. My impression is that through Kurosawa’s films, all of us can experience the soul of Japan, the inner strength of the Japanese people. Kurosawa has set the example of a cinema with a strong national flavor that attracts the interest, and the embrace, of the outside world.”
– Zhang Yimou
-
01Akira Kurosawa
-
02Akira Kurosawa
-
03Akira Kurosawa
-
04Akira Kurosawa
-
05Akira Kurosawa
-
06Akira Kurosawa
-
07Akira Kurosawa
-
08Akira Kurosawa
-
09Akira Kurosawa
-
10Akira Kurosawa
-
11Akira Kurosawa
-
12Akira Kurosawa
-
13Akira Kurosawa
-
14Akira Kurosawa
-
15Akira Kurosawa
-
16Akira Kurosawa
-
17Akira Kurosawa
-
18Akira Kurosawa
-
19Akira Kurosawa
-
20Akira Kurosawa
-
21Akira Kurosawa
