More Kurosawa.

Throne of Blood (1957), directed by Akira Kurosawa. The story is familiar, the Bard's Scottish play transposed to Japan. And suffused with Noh drama conventions. For me, this is one of the most, if not the most, visually arresting of Kurosawa's films. Sharp contrast, spare sets and minimalist interiors, the labyrinthine forest echoed in the labyrinthine arrows at the end, the mists, the running horses, the castle gates, the costumes, the moving forest, the single shape-shifting witch, all this is grand and powerful. Whereas Shakespeare employs spoken word gloriously, Kurosawa offers glorious visuals. Mifune's Washizu is intense and agonizingly torn between friendship, loyalty and his Lady who serves as his secret desire. The film offers long takes, something films today more often than not eschew. These long takes deliver slow progression to disaster and a race to death - both. Throne of Blood does not have the same human sweep of Seven Samurai; it is more internal, less social, but it does have unsurpassed scenes of a struggling human being. Of Kurosawa's Shakespeare films, I'll take this one over the other two.

 

Okay, I will say it: there's something rotten in the state of things. The Bad Sleep Well (1960), directed by Akira Kurosawa. This noir set in post war Japan fulfils expectations; it is dark, seedy, and sad. Let them eat cake. From opening wedding with its gigantic cake to final scenes in the ruins of a munitions factory, this film is relentless in its depiction of a world gone wrong. Capitalism is rife with corruption. What's a sad sack to do but plot to gain a modicum of revenge. Everyone in this film is crippled, at least one person noticeably so. The Hamlet references allow Kurosawa to weave politics into this story of one man's desire for revenge. Behind all the corporate greed, excess, and double-dealing is a mysterious figure, never seen and never heard but definitely there. What evil lurks at the other end of the telephone line? Perhaps this linking of the personal, the economic, and the political explains the many visual triangles we see. Kurosawa's deep focus is also nice because it tells us that we may be able to see deeply into a scene, but this does not necessarily mean we know what is going on. The bustling of the news reporters and the various headlines we see are fine reminders of the failure of a world sophisticated in delivering news, but not in eradicating the rot that news depends upon. The Bad Sleep Well is a slow burn of a film.

Ran (1985), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Sumptuous. This film famously retells the story of an elderly leader who passes on his leadership to his eldest son, and then slips into a fog of dementia. The sons may replace daughters, but this is the King Lear story right down to the fool and the vile jelly. The pace for such a long film is furious, in keeping with the chaos signalled in the film's title. The battle scenes are suitably brutal and bloody. The more intimate scenes are psychologically intense. Some scenes are reminiscent of what we see in The Seven Samurai, although here they are in vivid colour. What differs in the two films is, perhaps, the humanity. Ran offers few close-ups, whereas The Seven Samurai delights in faces and in human variety. In Ran, we mostly see things from a distance or a middle distance. What we see is glorious, to be sure. I was about to write that I miss the humanity of The Seven Samurai, but then I may be missing the point. I ought also to mention the echoes of Throne of Blood, especially in the figure of Kaede, wife of Taro and then of his brother. Somehow the echoes of The Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood give this film a sense of an ending, of something forever behind and beyond. Kurosawa's achievement here is astounding, especially when we consider his eyesight was failing. For someone whose eyes were dimming, Kurosawa made a fabulously colourful and carefully framed film. He had prepared for shooting the film by constructing storyboards for everything we see. I have never seen it, but I think these storyboards are available in book form. Before I cease and desist, I have to mention the visual homage in the film to John Ford.

The Quiet Duel (1949), directed by Akira Kurosawa. This film may seem dated because the problem in the story does not resonate now as it did back in the post war period. That problem is syphilis. In 1944, a young doctor (Toshiro Mifune) contacts the disease while operating on a soldier. We watch as he cuts himself during the operating procedure, in a rather excruciating scene. In any case, now having this dreaded STD, he feels he cannot fulfill his promise of marriage to his fiancé. Fast forward four years and the young doctor, in practice with his father, remains single, although his fiancé has remained patient and also puzzled. He refuses to tell her why he will not marry her. What makes all this melodrama powerful is of course the backdrop the war and postwar period. The cinematography intensifies things with its use of light and shadow and deep focus. Often we see the doctor through a web of branches and foliage or through a window or doorway or beside an ironwork fence, all this reminding us of his entrapment. Clearly, the film is about the disastrous consequences of militarism. It also has to do with honour and human suffering. As always, Kurosawa is intense in his interest in character and the film has several memorable characters, including a young unwed mother who becomes a nurse and who speaks her mind.

I Live in Fear (1955), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune is magnificent in this film. He plays an elderly patriarch who is terrified of the Atomic Bomb! His paranoia leads him to plan a relocation to a farm in Brazil, thinking this move will keep himself and his extended family safe. Oh, and by extended family, I mean not only his children and grandchildren, but also two mistresses and the children of theses mistresses, plus the son of another mistress now deceased. Of course, his family do not wish to relocate, especially since they run a foundry and know nothing of farming. The plot turns on a family petition to the family courts to have the old fellow certified incompetent to make such decisions for himself and for others. Much of the action we experience through the eyes and feelings of a local dentist who serves on the family court. This focalization allows Kurosawa to maintain sympathy for the old man as he descends deeper into mania. Like so many post war films, I Live in Fear takes us into mental strain and instability (Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor anyone!). One might think a film like this is now dated, but we continue to live in a world that fosters fear, indeed requires fear in order to support the late capitalist drive to continue its onslaught on the planet. So there.

 How about some Kurosawa for Christmas.

Scandal (1950), directed by Akira Kurosawa. This is Kurosawa’s It’s a Wonderful Life! Well, not really, but it does take place over Christmas, and we have decorated trees and presents and festive goings-on. Oh, and we do have the importance of stars, although none of them have the name Clarence. As we would expect from Kurosawa, the story is deeply human. The plot is straight forward and even relevant to what we have today, a press focused on sensation and celebrity rather than truthful news. The opening scene finds artist Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) painting in the mountains. A young woman, the well- known singer Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko Yamaguci), happens by. She has missed her bus and Ichiro offers to give her a ride back to the hotel where, coincidentally, both are staying. At the hotel, the two share a drink on a balcony, and while there a paparazzi takes their picture. This picture, along with an article about their affair, appears in the tabloid Amour. They are not having an affair. They are outraged, and Ichiro decides to sue the paper. At this point the film shifts focus from the singer and painter to the lawyer Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), who needs money to pay his daughter’s medical bills. She has tuberculosis. Hirutu also has a drinking problem. He takes a bribe from the publisher of Amour, a bribe intended to make him intentionally lose the court case. The film, then, is about honour, honesty, and the difference between a free press and a licence to fabricate and lie. We also have the joy of seeing Mifune ride a motorcycle with a fairly large decorated Christmas tree tied behind the driver’s seat. 

 

Sanjuro (1962), directed by Akira Kurosawa. This is the second film that follows the exploits of "thirty-year old" flower samurai, Sanjuro. Here he calls himself "camellias." And these flowers work their way into the plot. This time Sanjuro finds himself in a feudal town where corruption among high officials reigns. Nine young men, naive young men, are setting out to save their town from the corrupt official they think is the chamberlain. Sanjuro overhears them talking and he steps forward to advise them they are wrong. From what he has heard, he surmises that the superintendent, not the chamberlain, is the corrupt one. Anyway, the film involves Sanjuro maneuvering through various factions with the gaggle of nine young men following him like a line of ducklings. Then there is the chamberlain's wife who tells Sanjuro that he is an "unsheathed sword," and advises him not to go about killing people. All this is quite charming in a way Yojimbo is not. The humour is somewhat broader than in the earlier film, and everything goes along quite smoothly until the final showdown. This showdown is a show-stopper. The young men are impressed with Sanjuro's skill with his sword, but he tells them they are idiots as he turns and takes up his wandering life once again.

 

Drunken Angel (1948), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa liked doctors. Doctors appear in this film, the next year’s Quiet Duel, and Kurosawa’s last film with Mifune, Red Beard (1965). Drunken Angel is Kurosawa’s first film with Toshiro Mifune who plays Matsunaga, a well-dressed yakuza who is standing in for the Big Boss who is serving a prison sentence. The doctor is Senada (another Kurosawa stalwart, Takashi Shimura). The film opens with Matsunaga arriving at Senada’s place to have treatment for a gunshot wound to the hand. Thus begins an uneasy friendship between these two unlikely people, both conducting a love affair with alcohol. The setting is a sump in a run-down section of post-war Tokyo. This oily pond with its bubbles of methane and garbage serves as a visual metaphor for conditions in the war-ravaged place. Disease rises from the sump, and Matsunaga has tuberculosis, although his sense of masculinity leads him to deny the disease. As always with Kurosawa what matters has to do with humanity, individuals who may represent something about the times, the country, but who remain distinctly individuals with their desires, their defeats, their melancholy, their relationships, their flaws and their dignity. The film has a tough sense of enclosure that suits the depiction of lives on the edge. These people live shadow lives and the camera work makes this clear. The final scene is as grisly as any in Kurosawa's films. The music - The Cuckoo Waltz and the Jungle song - are masterful counterpoints to the action.

 

Stray Dog (1949), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Most of Kurosawa’s films are in my collection, and I have seen them all. At least, I thought I had seen them all. Watching Stray Dog, however, was a surprise. I do not recall having seen it before, more’s the pity. This is an excellent crime thriller with some terrific suspense sequences and likeable characters. It is also so much more. The films deals with obsession, with social conditions in Japan just after the Second World War, with extremes of poverty, with family, with rain and with sunshine, and most especially about the effect of war upon those who survive the battles. The protagonist, rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune), finds himself chasing the man who has stolen his pistol. In effect, he finds himself chasing his own shadow. The two men are doppelgangers, one a policeman and the other a petty criminal. Aided by his mentor, Detective Sato (Takashi Shimura), Murakami comes of age, loses his innocence, and learns about family and friends. As always, Kurosawa is deeply humanistic. The film moves briskly and yet covers much territory. Kurosawa captures the intense heat of the July in which the action takes place. At times, watching people perspire, fan themselves, wipe their brows and faces, lounge about in an enervated manner virtually transfers the conditions we view beyond the screen. Early in the film we have a lengthy sequence in which Murakami, disguised as a vagrant veteran (he is, in fact, a veteran), wanders the ravaged city experiencing a world he might well have entered after his years of service had he not become a policeman. This sequence is directed by Kurosawa’s friend, Ishiro Honda, best know for his work on the later Godzilla series. I could go on about the tracs of Hitchcock I see in the fim, but suffice to say this is an impressive and important work in Kurosawa’s canon.

 

Yojimbo (1961), directed by Akira Kurosawa. We watched this film again last evening. It has been a long time since we saw it last. The combination of deep focus, tight close-ups, wide screen panoramas, intriguing characters who wander into caricature, frantic action, and humour still entertain. This film may not have the intricacy or richness of Seven Samurai, but it does succeed in pleasing. And it has been and continues to be a huge influence on later films. Toshiro Mifune as Sanjuro the wandering samurai/ronin delivers a wry, laconic, weary, and complex performance. His shoulder shrugs and his scratching and his toothpick tell us more about his character than his words. He is a bodyguard who kills those he is hired to guard. The film manages to celebrate this samurai's heroism while also showing the terrible cost of a life of violence. His adversary is a young man with a gun, and their showdown proves the mastery of the older man sans gun. The elegance of the old way seems preferable to the fire-power of the new world that is about to end the ways of the samurai. This film is not as intricate as Rashomon or as morally penetrating as Ikiru or as grand as Seven Samurai, yet it is Kurosawa's most successful and influential film.

 

Dreams (1990), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Also doing some directing here is Ishiro Honda, he of Godzilla fame (most notably the Mount Fuji in Red vignette). The film begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral. In between the first and final vignettes, we have six other vignettes that follow the “I’ character (a surrogate for Kurosawa himself) through a series of dreams. In all of the dream sequences death takes a part, most darkly in the first one that focuses on the Fox’s Wedding, and most lightly in the final one “The Water Village.” In all dreams, the myopia of human action rings loudly, most loudly in “The Water Demon,” and “The Tunnel.” The focus is on the ill-advised use of nuclear power and the unthinking ravaging of the environment. But what makes this film so stunning is its interest in form. What stands out for me is the Vincent Van Gogh sequence in which we see a young Kurosawa admiring a series of paintings on a gallery wall before he enters the world of these paintings – literally as well as figuratively. The experience of the film is something like this. We have eight “paintings” only paintings into which we find ourselves immersed. The colours are vivid and the compositions strikingly posed. Visually, this film is as astounding as anything you will see. The film offers an immersive experience. The first and final sequences are bright and colourful to point out, I imagine, an optimism against the waning of the light. A couple of other dreams are equally bright and colourful – “The Peach Orchard” and “Van Gogh” ones. Then we have the less bright dreams – “The Tunnel,” “The Water Demon,” and “The Blizzard.” The dreams are a mixture of memory and folktale, with a dash of Dante thrown in for “The Water Demon” one. Kurosawa here foregoes the action of his famous samurai films and gives us a slow contemplative take on dreams and human stupidity.

Sanshiro Sugata (1943), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Thanks to David McMillan, I am reading Stuart Galbraith IV's fulsome biography of Kurosawa and Mifune, and I am reminded that I have a copy of Kurosawa's first film as a director, Sanshiro Sugata. The copy I have I picked up, I think, in Shanghai, and it is visually okay, but the subtitles are, to say the least, incoherent. And the print that survives today is missing 17 minutes. Despite such things, the film is definitely worth watching. The story is straight forward, a brash young man wants to become a master of judo and he sets out to find a teacher. The teacher he finds lets him know that he needs to mature, to find self discipline and humanity. The young man does after a long night clinging to a stick in a swamp-like pool. He also meets a young woman whose father fights the young man in a contest between schools for the right to become teachers of the local police. The young woman has another admirer, a man in spiffy western clothes who also sports a slim moustache. This admirer fights the young man in a wind-swept field of tall grass in the film's climax. The young man wins, and he and the girl will have a future together. Simple. What makes this film interesting is its signs of the Kurosawa to come: its use of wipes, slow motion, nature (flower, water, clouds, wind, and so on) as emblematic of emotions, and striking compositions. The film is also a sly expression of Japanese wartime sensibility in that the young man represents the youth and vigour of the country's spirit and his main adversary has just a touch of the "west" about him. Finally, I like the local train at the end.

The Idiot (1951), directed by Akira Kurosawa. Adapted from Dostoyevsky's story, this film was initially 265 minutes long, but Kurosawa's studio demanded a shorter version, and what we now have is a 2 hour and 46 minute film that no doubt suffers from the drastic cut in running time. Apparently no copies of the longer version now exist. The Idiot as we have it has its virtues, but on the whole it does not work for me. The plot has ellipses that are confusing, and the central character depends on a certain nervous mannerism with his hands that begins to grate on me as the film goes on. The other characters are admirably presented, and I especially like Taeko, the film's femme fatale; she reminds me of Gloria Holden in Dracula's Daughter! The film uses many close-ups for reaction and emotional tension, and I think these work (I imagine Sergio Leone saw this film). The constant presence of snow and wind also resonates, and I especially like the shots in which tall snow banks and icicles serve as menacing mouths about to swallow the characters. We have what we expect from Kurosawa, careful and arresting compositions and intensely presented characters. All in all, this film registers Kurosawa's profound humanity and this is fine. However, his profound humanity finds more satisfying expression in the same year's Rashomon.

 Just a few films to begin December.

The Batwoman (1968) directed by Rene Cardona. This Mexican production is one of the worst films I have seen. Its ingredients are promising with underwater filming, a monster that resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a crazed scientist hell bent on crossing a human with an amphibian, the scientist’s minion named Igor, a laboratory ship called Reptilicus (the title of a 1961 film about a monster that terrorizes Copenhagen), and of course a scantily-clad Batwoman. Sadly what we have is a badly acted, poorly choreographed, wandering narrative about the draining of wrestlers’ pineal glands. This film is a cross between a luchador film (a film that features masked wrestlers – e.g. Santos contra los zombies, 1962) and the Adam West television series from about the same time. Clearly the Batman television series is an influence here with the Batwoman’s costume and her sleek black automobile. This film, however, sorely lacks the camp element we have in the tv series. Special effects are rudimentary. Yes, the mad scientist has a crazed laugh and a split face (think Batman’s Twoface), and the monster looks good enough for the Black Lagoon, yet none of this has any zip or polish. 

 

Ballerina (2023), directed by Chung-Hyun Lee. This Korean revenge flick is in the John Wick vein, although here the kick-ass hero is female, the former body guard Okju (Jeon-Jong Seo). Okju’s friend, the ballerina Min-hee (Park Yu-rim), is killed by thugs who run a drug ring and prostitution place, and Okju sets out to mete out justice to the perpetrators. If you can stand the dark reddish lighting in many scenes, and the gaudily decorated apartments, and you enjoy watching a woman toss about and generally thrash scores of men, then this film may be for you. As these things go, Ballerina serves up the requisite body count with a couple of touches that you may not see elsewhere. For example, Okju’s arsenal is quaint and includes a vintage six-shooter, an old derringer, and a flame thrower. This last serves Okju well in the film’s finale. Her main adversary is a fellow named Choi Pro (Kim Ji-hoon) who does a mean workout, accomplishing feats of calisthenics a wonder to behold. Choi also has an independent streak that does not serve him well. In his first round with Okju, he finds himself defaced – really. This film and films like it seem connected to the zeitgeist; the violence here should be unsettling rather than entertaining. By the way, I notice a John Wick spin-off titled “Ballerina” is coming in 2024. Ballet and mayhem are the order of the day.

 

The Killer (2023), directed by David Fincher. Here is a film to add to the neo-noir catalogue. It is dark and clear-eyed in its direction, moving along with a linearity rare in films these days. It begins with a botched hit in Paris, then moves to a failed attempt by the hitman’s client to remove him, and then on to the hitman’s journeys to wipe out his adversaries. These journeys take him from Paris to the Dominican Republic, to New Orleans, to Florida, to New York, and to Chicago, before he returns to his lavish lair in the Dominican Republic. The end. Oh, and on these journeys, he manages to remove four people. The film has little dialogue, but much monologue in a voice over that takes the noir convention to the extreme. Like some noirs, this film is a procedural, meticulously, if absurdly, following the nameless (well he has many names to go with his many passports) hit man (Michael Fassbender) as he sets out to remove those who would do him harm. There is a brutal fight with a fellow called The Brute in a Florida condo, and there is a delicious dinner engagement with the hitman sitting opposite a cue tip-shaped woman, The Expert (Tilda Swinton), listening as she does most of the talking. This is a watchable take on the genre, a take that veers towards parody. What interests me is the way the meticulousness of the director vies with the meticulousness of his protagonist.

Barbie (2023), directed by Greta Gerwig. Everyone has seen this half of Barbenheimer, but what the heck. What’s left to say? It’s a hoot. The first ten minutes or so are worth the senior’s price of admission. Here we have a brilliant parody of Kubrik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and this sets up the rest of the movie’s take on capitalism and consumerism as the Almighty. The rest of the film is clever and even ingenious, and we leave the theatre with confidence that Barbieland is safe from patriarchy, and the so-called “real World” continues on in its same old way, although patriarchy has to be more sneaky in its use of power. The film is chock full of cotton candy and bubblegum pink and soft shades of blue and yellow and pale green, and dance numbers reminiscent of Vincente Minnelli and the heyday of Hollywood musicals. The dollhouse sets and toy décor of Barbieland are impressive. The script is surprisingly effective. The film tries to be critical of corporate America, but with Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel, it is difficult to be overly cross with him and his minions, who are fuddy-duddies. After all, Mattel, along with Warner Brothers, did foot the bill here. The film also tries to bring diversity to Barbie’s world, but in the end the blond white woman is front and centre. More attractive to me is the unseen narrator who provides a clever meta touch. So what to say? That’s entertainment.

 

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022), directed by Martin McDonagh. A film many of you will have seen, The Banshees of Inisherin is a gloriously evocative film that sets the Irish Civil War (the year is 1923) against another smaller conflict taking place on this fictional island off the west coast of Ireland. The location shooting of this rugged yet pastoral land is magnificent. One of the delights of the film is the look of land and sea. Amid the strained relationships on this island, an array of animals – small donkey, cows, horse, dog – go about their daily existence stoically and silently. Also silent, for the most part, is Colm (Brendan Gleeson) who no longer wishes to be friends with Padraic (Colin Farrell). The ending of this friendship constitutes the plot here, a plot with just a bit of flamboyance, the cutting off of Colm’s fingers so he can drive home the seriousness of his intention of ending the friendship. The film is contemplative, raw, and even funny despite the dreariness it depicts. The island setting allows a combination of open landscapes with claustrophobia. As tension between the two former friends escalates, the surrounding cast becomes something of a creepy chorus, not helping the situation by their gossip and nosiness. Perhaps the one sliver of hope lies in Siobhan (Kerry Condon), Padraic’s sister, accepting a job on the mainland and departing this small and festering island.