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I finally got my copy back...anyway
IMO, this is Kurosawa's best film. I've seen his most popular films (7S, Rashomon, Ikiru, Yojimbo, etc), and although the others may be more influential, I think this is his most accomplished.
My reasoning, is that Kurosawa keeps everything happening at a distance ("... a series of human events viewed from heaven") that would normally prevent a film from being engaging. There is little involvement in the characters, the action is clinical and unexciting, he seems more interested at times in the setting than the characters, and yet every time I see it I sit there like a kid riveted to Saturday morning cartoons. It must be bloody difficult to make a movie without relying on cheaper more visceral tricks, but Kurosawa does it.
Maybe its the distance that makes the film work so well? I know it allows more readings into the film. It can be read as a story about a fall from power into madness, a morality play about the effects of war, a meditation on self-destructive human nature.
Incidentally, a friend of mine suggested that the Fool is more important to the philosophical aims of the film than Hidetora. Not sure where I stand on this though... |
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