Sanjuro

Sanjuro (椿三十郎, or Tsubaki Sanjūrō) is a black-and-white film directed by Akira Kurosawa, released in 1962, and starring the charismatic Toshiro Mifune. Once again I got ahead of myself by watching the sequel before the prequel, in this case Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961).

After recently re-watching some of Kurosawa's massive works such as Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954) and Ran (1985), Sanjuro felt overall like a smaller endeavor but still equally Kurosawa in terms of style, pace, humor and cinematography. Actually, of the three other films I just mentioned, I found Sanjuro most similar to Ran for all the scheming characters and their dramatic struggles for power, but visually they're mostly poles apart; while Ran has lots of wide shots and expansive scenery, Sanjuro by comparison feels claustrophobic, and this creates a sense that "the enemy" or his spies always could be just outside the door. With this feeling of enclosure we're also deprived of a sense of distance between the various groups vying for power, and this effectively adds to the uncertainty and suspense.

All in all I enjoyed Sanjuro, especially for its comic elements. The heated exchanges between the band of nine young samurai (repeatedly referred to as baka, or idiots) and the rōnin Sanjuro (Mifune) were entertaining, as were the many well choreographed sword fights.

The Downfall of Osen

The Downfall of Osen (折鶴お千, or Orizuru Osen) is a 1935 silent film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi and with benshi accompaniment. It stars Isuzu Yamada (who's also in both of Mizoguchi's 1936 films, Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion) and is based on a novel by Izumi Kyōka, which I think has yet to be translated into English.

This is one of Mizoguchi's most acclaimed early films, but it didn't hold my attention as much as The Water Magician (1933), to which it's similar in terms of themes: the maternal lover, the destitute and ostensibly asexual boy who dreams only of completing his education, the woman's total sacrifice of body and mind for the boy's success. In The Water Magician, the heroine Shiraito (played by Takako Irie), ultimately sacrifices her very existence, though interestingly Mizoguchi chose with Osen to have her first go insane rather, obsessed past the brink of madness as she was to protect the boy from the corruption and evils of society.

A couple other things struck me with this one. First, the narrative is nonlinear. It begins with the boy (now a man and doctor) and Osen at a train station, where operations are temporarily shut down due to a freak downpour. Neither knows the other is there. Both are lost in their memories. And much of the rest of the film is composed of flashbacks (also not chronological) and even a flashback within a flashback to a time way before the train station sequence, and then towards the end of it all the story returns us to the station before continuing into "the future." What? This is postmodernism, but wasn't the postmodern narrative introduced in films a decade or two later? What other 1930s movie does this?

Second, I've read enough about Mizoguchi to get a sense that film scholars and critics tend to focus on the female characters and their roles in his films. But what about the male roles? With The Downfall of Osen I started imagining the Mizoguchi heroine as a pinball being knocked about until she ultimately falls and disappears between those final flippers. The bumpers are types of guys: innocent, iniquitous, dutiful, immoral, religious, etc. Sure our focus is centered on her as she tries to navigate these obstacles, sometimes nurturing but always bearing the brunt of what comes out of their mostly self-serving actions, but Mizoguchi was no doubt equally aware of the roles and representations of men in his pictures, and he may have interpreted his own desires, responsibilities, and conflicting inclinations through those male characters and probably how his own behavior might affect the other sex.

Mistress of a Foreigner

Mistress of a Foreigner (1930) (based on a novel by Gisaburo Juichiya) was also directed by Mizoguchi, but only around four minutes of it are known to exist. I watched what's left of the film after seeing The Downfall of Osen, and it's basically a dance performance set to music and book-ended by scenes of waves lapping a shoreline. Unfortunately there's very little information available in English or Japanese about this fragment or the film itself.

The Downfall of Osen (here and below)

Ran

Akira Kurosawa's final epic, Ran (or 乱, which can mean riot, war, disorder, and disturb), released in 1985, is based both on legends of Mōri Motonari and on Shakespeare's King Lear (derived from the legendary king of the Britons named Leir). Ran tells the story of Hidetora Ichimonji (Motonari-slash-Lear, played brilliantly by Tatsuya Nakadai) during the Sengoku period (1573–1603).

The old warlord has a dream, which inspires him to divide his realm among his three sons (as King Lear did among his three daughters). Like Lear, Ichimonji slips into madness, and this is inflamed by the disrespect he perceives his sons are showing him. War breaks out, heads (of a fox statue and two women) are lopped off, and the fool may be the only one seeing things for what they truly are. All the while the whole world seems off-kilter and irreparable.

Watching Ran makes you realize how CGI shattered a facet of the art of film-making. The special effects, costumes and makeup, and painstaking efforts of the crew created battle and other scenes that are incredibly realistic, in their rawness and true-to-life imperfections, and made Ran a visual masterpiece. This includes the colors—rich or dull, dim or bright, ablaze and vibrant or smoky, and so forth—infusing each scene with an atmosphere and mood aligned with the narrative and individual characters. The two scenes I especially enjoyed were the siege and slaughter at the burning Third Castle and the one in which Lady Kaede coerces Jiro, to become the real power behind the throne.

Stop it! Do not curse the gods! It is they who weep. In every age they've watched us tread the path of evil, unable to live without killing each other. They can't save us from ourselves. Stop your crying! Such is the way of the world. Men live not for joy but for sorrow, not for peace but for suffering. Look at those in the First Castle. Even now they vie for the greater share of sorrow and suffering and revel in their mutual slaughter!

— Ran, Akira Kurosawa