About
My favorite Kurosawa film (I feel it's his masterpiece as it expressed his own deepest concerns about the disappearing wilderness after his suicide attempt) and one of the most underrated films of all time. This film captured me the first night I watched it since only a few other filmmakers (Malick in Tree of Life, Paradjanov in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Brakhage in Dog Star Man) have expressed the mystical vision of nature which Kurosawa does here. For awhile I considered it 4 stars (since there are sections in the 2nd half of the film which I thought were unnecessary and detracted from the flow) but who am I kidding--despite these minor qualms, it's easily a 5-star film.
