Entry 110: "Dodes'ka-den" (1970)

"Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack"

Dear Internet,

                This is the fifth Akira Kurosawa film I have gone over for the Backlog, and I will say it up front that I was unimpressed more or less.  I would rather not beat around the bush concerning what I think about this film.  Partially because I want to get this review over as quickly as possible but mostly because I would like to save you from having to experience a review as adrift as this film was.  The film suffers heavily because of this meandering narrative that goes nowhere for two hours.

                "Dodes'ka-den" is set in a landfill.  As far as the eye can see, there is trash and debris thrown about.  The houses are built from secondary materials and anything else the denizens can get a hold of.  The film follows around a collection of individuals as they go about their daily life in the shanty town.  There is the homeless bum and his son who dream of a house to call their own.  There are two couples, who are color coded for the convenience of the audience that regularly trade spouses.  There is the mentally handicapped child who daily goes out and works an imaginary tram late into the night.  On top of that are a number of other individuals that make a scattering of the setting.  As the film rolls, the audience witnesses a few mix-matched small stories play out.  All these small plots unwinds, the various characters that make up the world are displayed in deeper detail.

                If you are looking for a more cohesive story, you are not going to find one here.  "Dodes'ka-den" is about nothing in particular.  There is no overarching unification of the various stories or of the characters to one another very much.  For the most part, all of the various stories are independent of one another to the point that it feels less like a feature film and more like a series of short ones edited together.  The closest thing that unifies the stories together, besides the setting, is the collection of unnamed women that seem to perpetually do their dishes in the communal water source.  Yet, that is about the height of their interaction with any of the various stories.  They act more as narrators to create exposition through the gossip they pass to one another and inadvertently to the audience.

                What ends up happening with this lack of cohesion between the various stories is a somewhat haphazard final product.  While each one of the various stories can be taken by itself and examined to see what it is trying to showcase to the audience, the collection as a whole does not seem to have any specific direction.  Since there are only a few times that the various stories intermingle, the only thing that can be argued is that the film as a whole is meant to showcase a certain level of futility considering the rounding nature of the opening and closing segments.

                The film opens up and closes with the child that believes he is a tram conductor.  We see him begin his daily routine with all the various miming to show where his imaginary tram exists.  The audience sees his mother, who prays to Buddha alongside her son.  At the end of the film, we see him return to his home and finish his daily grind.  As bookends, these scenes do create some sort of framing mechanic, but that is about as far as it goes.  At first, I thought the film was going to follow specifically the child and treat him as a main character, but this is not the case.  After only a few minutes with this character, the film abandons him for all of two or three scenes here and there until the last scene.  When I figured out that the scope of the film was much larger than one character, I thought that maybe the film was going to continue to use him as some sort of segue to the various stories, but that did not seem to be the case.  Then I thought that the film would be using him as a sort of foil for the various characters and highlight their faults and problems, but that did not seem to be the case.  The film does not use enough juxtaposition to warrant such an outlook.  The film as a whole did not seem to have a specific direction as to where it was going.  If the point was that life is just going in an endless circle, it is a somewhat depressing point.

                There is one thing that the film does well that I cannot leave out.  "Dodes'ka-den" is Akira Kurosawa's first color film, and he presents a wonderfully vibrant world of color.  In the landfill world of the film, any sort of color quickly attracts the eye to it.  Take the color coded couples.  You can easily tell when one husband is cheating on his wife when he walks into the wrong colored house.  Then there are two characters that get gravely sick.  Kurosawa has the two painted up with deep hues of green and blue to highlight their physical maladies.  But the greatest visual display has got to be the tram child's home.  The home is made in a simple Japanese style manner, built of wood and paper.  However, instead of plain white paper being used to line the wooden doors, a large number of either crayon or water colored drawings are used.  Each one of the drawings depicts a tram car.  The effect created when the film shows the interior of the house in the morning is a beautiful stained glass house.  The light passes through the drawings and the house is illuminated by it.  Color is one of few things that the film gets spot on.

                You might find something about "Dodes'ka-den" to like.  In fact, there are a number of characters and stories to like here, but I did not find the film as a whole to be enjoyable.  At times, the quiet scenes added a dynamic to the behavior of characters, but would also make the film stretch out a bit too long.  For a film that is about nothing in particular, it takes quite a while to say nothing.  It reminds me a bit of Kurosawa's earlier work, "The Lower Depths."  While both films detail those that rest at the bottom of society, at least "Lower Depths" had something to say.  Albeit it was Russian realism, which means Russian pessimism, but at least that film carried a bit of suspense to a central plot.  "Dodes'ka-den" is like a slice of life film without any of the genre's charm.  Outside of the tram child, there is not much worth watching the film for.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" for PC, provided I can get it operational.

Entry 105: "The Lower Depths" (1957)

Dear Internet,

                "The Lower Depths" is the second film by Akira Kurosawa which has got stems in play acting that I have reviewed for this Backlog.  If you remember, the first was "Throne of Blood" which was based off of Shakespeare's "Macbeth."  This film is based on a play by the same name, written by Maxim Gorky.  I am unfamiliar with the play.  So, I cannot do some sort of adaptation awareness review as I did with "Throne of Blood", and I will not try.  From what I have read, the film is a close adaptation, and in some aspects, this is evident.  The most notable aspect is the fact that the film only has five scenes, which I assume is a reflection of the five act structure found so often in plays.  But that is a guess at best and a bit of speculation at worst.

                "The Lower Depths" tells of a group of people in the Edo period.  In the group are gamblers, thieves, whores, adulterers, and maybe even a murderer.  They are all gathered under a ramshackle roof of a greedy landlady.  Within the film, we are introduced to the various characters.  There is Sutekichi, the thief and lover of Okayo, who is the sister to the landlady, Osugi.  Then there is the former actor who is dying of long term alcohol poisoning.  After that is the tinker whose wife is on her deathbed.  There is also the man who claims to have been a samurai lord years prior to the jeers of his peers.  Beyond that are a number of other characters who all have similarly tragic and depressing tales.  But perhaps most noteworthy is the old man in pilgrim garb named Kahei.  Kahei enters into the bottom barrel in as a fresh element into the mix.  He gives the various characters advise to better their situations and attempt to steer their cynicism away.  However, as the film continues, the story takes a final dark turn.

                Beyond that, there really is not much of a story or plot.   It is more of a premise than anything else, but the most central story would have to be the relationship between Sutekichi and Okayo.  Sutekichi was one having an affair with Osugi, but wants nothing to do with her now.  He is stuck in his way of life and wants to get himself and Okayo away from the dead end tenement that the film takes place in.  The film most closely follows this as the central plot, but since there are so many characters that exist within the film, it is hard to only tie it down to this one thing.  The rest of the cast receive almost equal footing in their presentation to the audience.  The tinker is on equal footing as the drunk.  The thief is just as important as the prostitute.  The landlord is as important as the sister's uncle, and so on.  This creates an effect that the film is more about the collection rather than anyone specific.  The film is about a premise, not a story.

                But then, what is the premise trying to get to?  It is wracked with human suffering, obviously.  There is not a single individual in the entire film that does not suffer or have some sort of heartache.  Even Kahei, the traveling pilgrim, shows signs of his less than perfect life before appearing in the film.  The film starts with this suffering and ends with it.  It does not have much hope for the characters.  Considering that the majority of the characters ended up there because of their own actions, it would make sense that the only way for them to get out would be for them to pull themselves out.  Unless some change occurs either within them from some outside source, they will most likely remain there until they all die, one by one.  "The Lower Depths" does not paint a pretty picture.

                Kurosawa does a great job making the miniature world come alive.  Between the varied cast and the set, the film is able to draw in the viewer. I definitely want to give some praise to the sets and costumes.  The building they all live in looks like it is about to fall in on itself.  At the start of the film, two women toss their rubbish over a cliff onto the building thinking it is desolate.  The walls are made of irregular sized boards that show how many times it has required patchwork fixes.  There is one specific shot that shows the roofs of both the shanty house and the one that the landlord lives in.  The landlord's roof is made of perfectly shaped and organized shingles.  The other roof is made of a mix match of shingles from a variety of different styles and sizes.  The contrast between the quality of living is stark and quick to understand.  Then there is the wardrobe that the characters wear.  Every single one of the shanty tenants wears cloths dirtied to the point of being threadbare and nearly black in most parts.  When Kahei appears, he is wearing white garments that are so bright that everything else is made darker by comparison.  The visual effect gets its point across.

The haves, the have-nots, and the thin line between,

                The film progresses nicely for about four-fifths of its length.  At the climax, it bottoms out quickly.  The last scene of the five is the weakest one despite the final moments of the film.  Short of the last minute, it is uneventful and got me wanting the film to end quickly since it showed no signs of going anywhere.  On top of that, the final kicker does not deliver all that much kick.  I can say that there is a suicide at the end and not really be spoiling the ending.  This is because the film does not hint at much of anything less.  The film is a collection of people at the edge of society with mentalities and personalities driven just as far.  The suicide is precisely what the story was veering to all along.  It is the final crime that had yet to be committed.  The character that commits the deed is somewhat surprising unless you examine them closely.  I would even say that the character that does it is the one that had been most likely to do it.  But in the end, the film goes nowhere except to show the spiraling downward nature of a self-destructing behavior.  

                This would not be so bad if it were not for, well everything.  The film is way too depressing and negative that it would be sickening if it went on after the suicide.  I cannot help but think of "The Bad Sleep Well."  Both films detail a cast of characters that have grey morality.  However, "The Bad Sleep Well" is a examination at the attempt of revenge and how it is a black deed no matter the angle of viewing.  "The Lower Depths" has got too much of a sense of futility.  Both films can be seen as cautionary tales, but "The Lower Depths" plays a heavier hand.  The villain, if there is one, gets away with exactly what they wanted.  At least in "The Bad Sleep Well," there was comfort in knowing the villain lost what he really wanted.

                "The Lower Depths" is a not a fun film, but it is a good one.  It gets its point across, I think.  Then again, with a work like this, it might be actually trying to portray the world it creates as a final truth.  In the end, it is a fantasy born from select realities, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.  That is what all fiction is.  The end result is what matters.  For the film, it is an end that is just too black for reality.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. See the announcement for further entry details.

Entry 068: "Rhapsody in August" (1991)

Dear Internet,

                As you have most likely surmised, I like Akira Kurosawa films.  Well, that might have been hard to surmise considering that I have only reviewed two of his films.  But you must remember that not everything that I review is what I have watched, for there are things that I have seen before starting the blog.  There are works that I would instantly place upon the level of "Waiting in the Summer," "Throne of Blood," and "The Complete Father Brown," all works that I have praised highly.  Going back over all the various things that I have read, watched, or played that warrant praise or should be recommended would take even more of my time than what the experiment that I have started already takes up.  So to partially allow my laziness to continue for at least one day more and to work on the task at hand, let us look at "Rhapsody in August."

                Set in the rural outskirts of Nagasaki in 1990, "Rhapsody in August" centers around a Japanese family that learns of a dying man in Hawaii that may be the brother of the family's matriarch Kane.  Kane has two children who have two children each.  Her two children along with their spouses go to Hawaii to determine the authenticity of the claim of relationship from the man.  Meanwhile, the grandchildren spend the summer with the grandmother at her country home.  The film constantly harkens back to the atomic bomb drop in 1945 that Kane witnessed and lived through.  It also examines the various different relationships that the three generations have with the event.  Near the end of the film, Clark, the son of Suzujiro who is the brother of Kane, comes into the film as a representative of the United States in a way and how he reacts to the bombing.

                One key character that I did not mention, since he never actually makes an appearance, is the grandfather, husband to Kane.  He died the day of the bombing in the school, partially because he was a school teacher and the building was used as a shelter.  While he never makes an appearance, or is even named now that I try to remember, the grandfather's death is something that is the center point of the film.  The grandmother still mourns for him.  The adults, when visiting the Hawaiians, make no mention of the bombing and his death.  The children are introduced to the stories of the attack as well as tales of both the grandfather and Kane's other brothers.  

                The stories that the children hear are presented in a manner that makes them seem like ghost stories.  The grandmother is an expert storyteller, able to make spines shutter with ease.  However, she says that none of her stories are scary ad are true.  For example, she tells her grandchildren about a water imp rescuing her brother from drowning, making sure to describe the face made of leaves and green hands poking through the darkness.  The children obviously take it as a ghost story.  The youngest one uses the water imp story to overcome his fears by scaring the rest.  Then there is the story of two trees split by lighting that is told against the backdrop of two lovers eloping.  It recalls the classic Japanese story of two doomed lovers committing suicide together.  While these stories are rather light if taken as tall tales, they act as forerunners for the story of the great atomic eye.  The great eye, while at first seeming to be another one of the possible tall tales, is shown to be a real horror which makes the ghost stories the playthings they are.

                I do not want to go farther than this into the plot without ruining the story.  Instead I want to take a moment to look at how the film addresses the various characters reactions to Nagasaki's bombing.  Each age group could be seen as a generational reaction to the bombing.  The grandmother never forgets the atrocity and prays for the souls of the departed on a regular basis.  The adults wish to ignore or downright deny the event to increase their chances of international relationships.  The children, who learn of the event, wish to understand the full picture while not blaming anyone specifically.  The single character from the States, who has no right to apologize or should since he cannot talk for others, admits his sorrow for his ignorance while trying to connect with his family.  Each generation handles the event differently to the point of being a stand in for general Japanese reaction to the event.

                The grandmother, who bore witness to it, is the generation that is almost forgotten.  She knows firsthand what war can do.  She admits her grudge against America was deep, but is now gone because she understand that war is not something that is clean.  There are no actions in war that can be wholly justified.  She wishes that the Japanese did not die but also acknowledges that the US had lost people too and wanted to end the war to save their own troops.  This can be seen as the older generation who directly never wanted to create a situation where an atomic weapon could be used.  You could even go as far as read the passivism that is sometimes found in older Japanese concerning the war, but I would be stepping outside my line with that comment.

                The adults are the middle generation seen as the Japan that wishes for economic growth through association and ties to the States.  When they return from Hawaii, all they can do is talk about how rich their relatives are and how they hope to get a job working for them.  The grandmother scolds them for their talk, saying they sound like "beggars."  Their actions can be seen as the Japan that prospered due to American influence.  Whether this can be seen as a criticism of Japan riding America's coattail until they were able to stand on their own can be up for debate.  The fact remains that the film wants to highlight the generation's willingness to submit themselves to an outside force for the sake of economic advancement despite becoming sub servant. 

                The children, however, are something of a blank slate.  They learn about the bombing from one who witnesses the sky crack open.  While the adults were at one time in the same position, the children have one advantage.  They can see how their parents, who heard the same stories, have reacted since.  The adults' choices are ones where they are willing to put aside the past to the point of ignoring it.  When they do this, it only makes more problems in the long run, like how Clark had to quickly fly to Japan and act as an envoy while losing something before the end.  The children still have their innocence but can learn from the mistakes of the parents.  

The children lower their hat at a jungle gym that was melted by the bomb's fires.

                Clark is hard to place.  He is a descendent of a Japanese immigrant but is so American that it almost is annoying.  I say this rather jokingly because they got Richard Gere to play the single American, an actor who can sometimes come across as being God's gift to women.  Casting choice aside, the film puts him in a bit of all the roles of the other generations.  He laments the death of his uncle like the grandmother, is business prone like the adults, and comes into the picture with an innocent blank slate of the effects of Nagasaki.  However, he is still an American, and the film does not forget this.  He cannot apologize since he has no right to do so, since he had nothing to do with the bomb or is in a position to ask for forgiveness.  What he can do is, and does, is share in the sorrow of the dead and pray for them.  This is all that can be asked for since nothing can bring back those that are gone.

                "Rhapsody in August" is a film about the bombing, and despite my attempt at analysis which might make it seem otherwise, it is not preachy.  It has something to say, but it does not do it with a hammer.  It says it like a grandmother telling bedtime stories to children, with tenderness and caution.  The film is not cramming its message down your throat.  It does it gently while respecting the topic it touches without resorting to kid gloves.  Even without the topic of the bombing of Nagasaki, the film creates a touching story about a family that has enough moments filled with laughter and tears to easily warrant a viewing.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is the "Saikano" animation.

Entry 036: "Throne of Blood" (1957)

Dear Internet,

                Recreating a masterpiece is not something easy.  Remaking one from the foundation up is neither so.  Even when one has a nearly guaranteed formula, it does not ensure a well made final product.  Why do I mention all this?  It is because "Throne of Blood," Akira Kurosawa's 1957 dramatic film, is a transpose of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" to the era of samurai and warlords.  There is no denying that.  It took me nearly half the movie to figure that out, but I was too far along enjoying it to count it against it.  This film is one of those rare cases where the original material is not shred apart to the point where only a chalk outline of its original nature remains or the original concept feels out of place.  "Throne" does not go for a perfect reproduction of "Macbeth," nor should it.  Instead it weaves a tale that could easily be mistaken for a completely Japanese film with no outside influence.

                The story starts with a foggy featureless mountainside with an eerie song being sung in the background about the numerous people that have died there.  A monument comes into view reading, "Here stood Spider's Web Castle."  Already the viewer knows that the story occurs sometime in the past and that the castle has fallen.  The subject is not if the fall of the characters will occur but when they will.  The scene changes to the castle in its heyday.  Various messengers on horseback begin to deliver messages to the lord of the castle telling him of an incoming attack by a traitorous general, Fujimaki, which has begun to overtake the various forts that guard the castle.  Quickly other messengers begin to appear telling the lord that two of his commanders has turned the tide of the battle and defeated the mutinous Fujimaki.  The two commanders, Miki and Washizu, are summoned to the castle but get lost along the way.  They are met by a spirit who predicts that Washizu will be installed as the Lord of the North Garrison and then the eventual Sovereign of the Spider's Web Castle and that Miki will become Commander of First Fortress and his son will be the ruler of Spider's Web Castle.  The spirit disappears and the two find their way to the castle where they receive the titles that the ghost had predicted they would obtain.  From there, the fall of the two begins.

                I have already ahead of myself.  First there is the spirit that meets them in the forest and how the two meet him.  Everything about the scene before, during, and after the spirit are so overwhelmingly reminiscent of a Japanese ghost story that one would have trouble identifying it as the Three Witches scene from "Macbeth."  Before the two find the spirit, they are sent to wander the woods while on horseback.  When the two men find it, the spirit sings a spine tingling song while working on a spinning wheel.  Compound that with the name of the castle and forest, you end up with the classic ghost story of a spider making its web.  The makeup on the spirit makes it nearly identical to ukiyo-e and other Japanese wood-block prints.  Even the rest of the cast is given makeup to make them appear as classical drawings.  Then there is the twig hut that the spirit "lives" in, which is only composed of a skeleton and completely see-through.  The technical seen can be seen when the hut disappears in a long shot while the camera is in the shot.  Piles of skeletons dot the area around the immaterial hut.  Afterwards, the two men are allowed back to the realm of the living, but only after riding through a thick fog for a while.  

                All of this adds up to something ethereal.  The spirit sings of the weaknesses of man and compares them to insects.  With the comparison of the spirit to that of a spider, the song fits.  Already the spirit had captured the two in his physical trap.  They were in his parlor whilst trying to get to the castle.  With only a few words, he was able to ensnare them in his mental trap.  By telling them of the promotions that they were to receive that day, which had already been decided, the second part of the prophecy would then become an enticing bait for them.  If the spirit was right about one thing, why would it not be right again?  It can be argued that even without the words of Asaji, Lady Macbeth here, Washizu would still aim for becoming the next ruler of Spider's Web Castle.  

                Another thing that I want to cover is that the entirety of the characters presented and the scenes presented are like those met in Japanese operas and paintings.  I already said that the spirit was a near photocopy of Japanese folklore descriptions, but the rest of the cast fit this.  Each character is given identification that a stage play would make use of to identify the cast to a large crowd that needs quick identification, or a painting that uses symbols to distinguish various persons.  Washizu and Miki are both introduced wearing flags on their backs, one a centipede and the other a hare respectively.  Not only does this create a quick visual reference to distinguish the two for the viewer, as would be the same reason on the battlefield for soldiers, but it also gives an insight into their personalities.  Washizu, mirroring the actions of Macbeth, slinks and crawls his way to the lordship with a poisonous bite.  Miki is slaughtered helplessly while never being a threat to Washizu.  Then there is the crown of the lord of the castle.  The crown has upon it a crescent that is so large that you might pull a muscle if you twisted your head too fast while wearing it.  Practicality aside, it acts as a quick identifier as well as the scepter he wields, which looks more like a fan, but I digress.

                If we continue down the story, we come across Asaji, Washizu's wife.  She is the only true villain of the film, and how she is a villain.  She is not in the film for ten minutes and she creates more problems than some antagonists do in entire shows.  Give her another ten minutes and she has turned Washizu's life and moral system utterly upside down.  Not only does she plant murderous thoughts in the heart of her husband about claiming the throne, but she also makes him believe his childhood friend Miki is planning to betray him.  Much of her actions are the same that Lady Macbeth did in the source play, but here they have some renewed vigor.  Kurosawa magnifies the betrayal of the king by placing Asaji and Washizu in front of a room with the blood of the traitor Fujimaki adorning the wall, molding and decaying the wooden panels.  The viewer and Asaji wait expectantly while the regicide is committed.  To complicate her character and the reason for Washizu's betrayal is her pregnancy that has a surprising turn of events later on in the story.

                Asaji is the only named female character in "Throne" that makes an appearance.  There is a midwife and other females who are not named, as well as the late lord's wife who is neither named nor shown because she commits suicide off screen.  With Asaji being the only female of note, there is a terrible danger of the film as coming across as misogynistic.  Even the witches are changed into a male spirit.  The only argument that the film is not saying that a woman's tongue is the seed of destruction and dissonance is the same one that makes it.  Again, Asaji is the only female, not because women are not present in such events and stories, but because there is little capacity for them in such stories.  "Throne" is about war and politics.  It is about commanders of soldiers rising through the ranks because of conflict.  Inserting female roles for the sake of it would detract from the work unless there was context behind it.  Could have the poisoned words that Asaji spouted have been said by a male subordinate of Washizu?  Yes, but Washizu would probably not have listened to him.  Here, the fact that it was his wife made all the difference.  If anything, "Throne" is a cautionary tale to both genders.  It warns men of the softness of their hearts to their wife's words and cautions wives about the hold they have over their husbands, for the reason for the betrayal eventually became for naught.

                "Throne of Blood" is a great film to be watched again.  There is something special about how Kurosawa captured the core aspect of "Macbeth" while not degrading it.  It is a unique film that can be watched without even knowing about "Macbeth," and that is what is important.  It does not become some sort of "I spy" game where you spend more time guessing the reference than watching the film, like "O Brother, Where Art Thou."  Instead, it spins a spider's web of deceit and murder that can chill the marrow by wholly transporting the audience into a world of spirits and cutthroat subordinates. 

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is " .hack//Sign" the animation.