(via branduponthebrain)

(via branduponthebrain)

Setsuko Hara, “the Eternal Virgin”

I know her as Ozu’s muse but didn’t know that she also appeared in Akira Kurosawa’s films. The Idiot, for instance, is one film I ought to watch.

Setsuko Hara withdrew from the limelight in 1963, the year Ozu died (that says a lot about the nature of their relationship), and has since lived as a recluse… The Greta Garbo of Japan.

A bit of very cool trivia: Setsuko Hara is the inspiration behind the heroin in Satoshi Kon’s awesome 2001 animé, Millennium Actress.

Rashōmon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa

Rashōmon tells the story of the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband through the widely differing accounts of four witnesses: the bandit & rapist Tajōmaru (Toshirō Mifune), the rape victim, the spirit of her murdered husband (channeled through a very spooky medium), and a woodcutter who witnessed the scene hiding behind the bushes. The story unfolds like a courtroom drama as the four characters recount their versions of the events in flashbacks. But it is also a flashback within a flashback: the accounts of the witnesses are being retold by the woodcutter and a priest to a stranger as all three wait out a rainstorm in a ruined gatehouse identified by a sign as Rashōmon.

Each of the four versions narrated by the four protagonists contradict eachother, leaving the viewer to determine which, if any, is the truth. The facts themselves do not differ, the woman was raped and the man is dead, but the motivations behind them do. Each of the three principle participants spins the story, not necessarily to cast themselves in a better light, but to show that they, their egos, were in control. The actions that took place occurred because they willed it as if each of them, in turn, were at the helm of the action.

To search for the truth in those stories is what makes this film so entertaining and engaging but is probably to miss the point for what we’re talking about here is the subjectivity and relativity of truth. When Tajomaru, the bandit, tells his story of the woman who consents to his aggressive advances, the story is true to Tajomaru [N.B: Kurosawa manages to convey the idea of the woman’s bitter consent with a simple shot of her hand crawling up the bandit’s back]. When the woman tells the story about her desire to end her husband’s maddening, loathing glare, the story is true to the woman. And when her husband’s spirit tells the story of his shame and suicide, we are looking at a dead man’s truth. Each of the characters had lied to themselves so profoundly, that their lies have become their realities.

My favourite version of the truth is that of the woodcutter: first because his is most likely to be the closest to the truth — he is after all the most neutral party (even though we find out that he too has reasons to spin the truth) — and second, because his story exposes with a great deal of humour and tragedy the bandit, the samurai and the woman for what they truly are. The duel in particular can be seen as a parody of the Japanese myth of the brave samurai, the fearless bandit and the virtuous woman. Instead, the woodcutter shows us the great bandit acting with uncertainty and almost trepidation, the virtuous woman is exposed as self-serving, manipulative and vicious, and the the noble Samurai turns out to be as dishonorable as he is a coward.

Despite Kurosawa’s cynic portrayal of human nature, the film ends with a glimmer of hope as it shows the woodcutter reaching out to help an abandonned baby. The baby does feel like an after-thought and comes into play in a somewhat contrived manner, like a last-minute addition forced upon the director by the producers in the attempt to end the movie on a redeeming and more audience-friendly note. That said, I do think the baby episode helps to reveal the full complexities of human nature. And somehow I feel it’s important that we’re left with the assurance that the priest’s faith in humankind has been restored.

Highlights: the opening scene of the derelict gatehouse being battered by a storm / Mifune’s lionesque performance (wiki: “Kurosawa suggested that Mifune play the bandit like a lion. As a result, Mifune gave the wild, nearly inhuman performance that can be seen in the film” ) / the woodcutter’s tale: the comic choregraphy of the duel between the bandit and the Samurai and Machiko Kyō’s performance as she shows the woman’s true colours / Fumiko Honma’s awesome turn as the medium.

Downlight: the Bolero-style score is annoying as hell.

Online reviews and sources I have stolen ideas and whole sentences from: wiki, Ruthless Reviews, Dennis Schwartz’s Movie Reviews, Film School Rejects.

Stream the entire movie here

benjaminhilts:

neetoday:

nee today: Toshiro Mifune
birth info: 1 April 2920 – 24 December 1997

“Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities.” – Akira Kurosawa

Mifune and Kurosawa finally made something of a reconciliation in 1993 at the funeral of their friend Ishiro Honda. After making tenuous eye contact, they tearfully embraced one another, ending nearly three decades of mutual avoidance. They never collaborated again, however, nor did they have a chance to restore their friendship fully. Both died within a year of the other.

I’m not really familiar with Mifune’s work, having seen only a couple of his films, but I’m always interested in a great actor-director duo and I find the above write-up to be a rather well written homage to both Mifune and Kurosawa.