I've finally done it! I have watched every major feature length film directed by Kurosawa Akira, my favorite director. It took quite awhile but it was (mostly) well worth it. He definitely learned to direct after awhile. Many of his war-time films to me were mid and one horrible one (it was a propaganda film), but from the point that he released Drunken Angel (his 7th of 30 films) there were only three I didn't give a 4+ star rating. As discussed in previous posts I made a list of every single one of his films ranked in order from best to worst.
The worst was The Most Beautiful, a propaganda film during WWII, which was given 1 star. The other movies that I didn't care much for were Rhapsody in August, Sanshiro Sugata 2 (which was a film he didn't want to make but was forced to), and The Idiot.
One Wonderful Sunday, The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Trail (this film was only an hour which is really the only reason I gave it a mid rating cause it was otherwise done really well) and The Quiet Duel were all in the three star range and enjoyable enough to watch again.
4 Stars is a big category with (in order worst to best) I Live in Fear, No Regrets for Our Youth, Sanshiro Sugata (his first movie, a great debut film), The Bad Sleep Well (a rough Hamlet adaptation), Madadayo (his final film), Dersu Uzala (an amazing Russian film, yes a Japanese director made a Russian film, about friendship), Yojimbo, Kagemusha (an amazing film about an actual samurai) and Sanjuro (the sequel to Yojimbo) were all 4 stars.
4.5 stars (in order worst to best) included The Lower Depths, Red Beard, The Hidden Fortress, Stray Dog, Rashomon (this is the film that really put him into the international audience, especially Western audiences), Throne of Blood (an amazing Macbeth adaptation) and Drunken Angel were all given that rating. I still question if I should move Drunken Angel up to 5 stars because it is such an amazing film. Plus it is the film that gave Mifune Toshiro his first major role, which then led to him being considered one of the greatest Japanese actors ever.
Finally the five stars, which I'll talk more about cause they're amazing. Dreams is the 7th best film by him and is literally just a collection of his dreams, which wow he has a lot better dreams than I do. He did very few color films but every time he did it was amazing. I also really want art from this movie (he was a painter and he would paint storyboards for certain scenes, including for this movie). In 6th was Dodes'ka-den, which is about poor people living life essentially. This film is his first color and is usually perceived rather poorly but I was in love with it the entire time. It showed even with color he's one of the best. My favorite part is where the title comes from, Roku-Chan is an autistic kid that imagines himself driving a tram all around the poor neighborhood and as he moves he makes all the sounds, the sound of it moving is "dodes'ka-den"/"どですかでん". Scandal is in 5th place and is a criticism of yellow-journalism and focuses on a painter whose picture is taken with an actress and a false story is created that almost ruins his career. I also absolutely loved Shimura Takashi's character as Attorney Hiruta, it was well down and pretty funny. Ran is fourth and is easily his most well shot film. It is considered one of the best shot films of all time and for good reason! It also shows off Kurosawa's biggest expertise, samurai films. I'll leave photos at the bottom but the shot of the burning castle is one of the best and my favorite I've seen ever, and probably the second best shot film that I've seen (in my opinion). Somehow there is still a better samurai movie, but barely! Seven Samurai is his first major samurai film and it is the best samurai film of all time, that I've seen thus far. This was the second one I watched with Beck and he started me off on really high notes for Kurosawa. I also love that it is so long (3.5 hours) that there's an intermission in it. Second place is High and Low (technically the correct translation is Heaven and Hell but I think High and Low is very fitting). A kidnapper accidentally steals the wrong son and the executives have to get the son back but are also trying to figure out who it is. (Technically) this is the first color in a Kurosawa film as during a scene a factory has pink colored smoke coming out that was hand painted for the movie. The ending is also perfect and everyone in the movie played it amazingly.
The best and first film I ever saw by Kurosawa was Ikiru. This film means a lot more than just it's amazing story and shots and characters, this is the film Beck (accidentally) used to get me into old movies. I had never really seen anything super old before or commonly, but when Beck showed me this I instantly got hooked and started watching a lot a lot more. It showed me my favorite director and my now favorite actor, Shimura Takashi. Ikiru follows a bureaucrat named Watanabe Kanji, played by Shimura Takashi, who realizes he is dying of pancreatic cancer, and that he has done nothing with his life that he finds worthwhile. He tries to find purpose then eventually his previous young coworker who was always happy gives him the idea to create something. He spends the remainder of his life trying to help build a park for a group of people who were seen in the intro but were denied. The end is perfect, I mean the entire film is but especially the ending. The last 40 minutes are actually after his death and at his memorial as those who worked with him slowly realize he spent his final years happy and trying to help others, and shows the scene that really made me sit back and just realize I watched something truly special. Watanabe was seen by a cop who recounts how he saw him in the park that night on the swing singing and perfectly happy. Truly the greatest film, and I don't think I'll ever find anything to beat it. I ended my Kurosawa journey with a rewatch of it and I still get the same reaction from seeing the movie. I'm glad Beck got me into these movies because they have been some of my favorite, and being able to find my favorite director and watch everything by him was a great journey and experience.
The last film I had newly watched was The Hidden Fortress with Beck, glad I got to start and end Kurosawa with him.
No comments:
Post a Comment