Kurosawa’s Rhapsody, Mizoguchi’s Bailiff

Last updated on: August 14, 2006 at 1:45 am by Peter T. Chattaway

Kurosawa’s Rhapsody, Mizoguchi’s Bailiff 2006-08-14T01:45:00-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’ve been on something of a Japanese kick lately.

Last week, a friend and I attended a screening of Akira Kurosawa’s second-to-last film Rhapsody in August (1991) — a screening that was hosted by local author Douglas Coupland, who explained some of the reasons why he feels a personal connection to that film.

I appreciated the film on some levels, and I can see why it has such a personal significance for Coupland, but overall I found it too didactic. The movie is about several children visiting their grandmother, who lives near Nagasaki and lost her husband in the atomic blast that fell there in 1945; the children learn about the horrors of nuclear weapons, and somewhere along the way Richard Gere (in his first movie after 1990’s Pretty Woman) shows up as a relative who comes to Nagasaki to learn some things, too.

Alas, I didn’t have much invested in the characters as characters, so when the film comes to what should have been a powerfully emotional conclusion, it didn’t stir me all that much.

In fact, I found myself distracted by the composition of the images, and the way the characters run from the right side of the screen to the left in that final sequence (and in the video cover). Lately I have been thinking that, just as foreign dialogue needs subtitles, perhaps the visuals in movies from certain cultures should be flipped around, too. We English speakers are used to reading from the left to the right, so we “identify” with the left side of the screen in a way that we do not “identify” with the right side (have you ever noticed how the “good guys” in all those battle scenes typically rush in from the left side of the screen?). But the Japanese read from right to left (or at least, they used to), so presumably they arrange the elements within their frames in a manner that is precisely the opposite of what we would do.

Anyway, that’s a tangent, and probably deserves a post of its own.

Tonight, the Pacific Cinematheque showed a double-bill of Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953) and Sansho the Bailiff (1954). Both films are excellent, and I really like the way Ugetsu mixes elements of ghost story and moral fable and period piece, etc., etc., but it is Sansho that really caught my attention this evening.

In some ways, the film’s narrative trajectory is reminiscent of Ben-Hur. (Note, there will be spoilers here.) While there are some major differences between the two stories, they both concern someone from the upper classes who is reduced to slavehood, but who then rises to an even higher social status — but after he gets his revenge, he ends up abandoning his newfound social status so that he can look for his mother who, by this point, has either been given up for dead or would arguably be better off that way.

The film is a little more complicated than that, not least because it is not clear who the protagonist will be. If you approach the film blind, keeping in mind Mizoguchi’s reputation as a “feminist”, you might think that the main character will be the woman who is compelled to travel with her two children by foot, after her husband is exiled. But after she and the children are separated by slave traders, the film jumps ahead ten years, and our main focus seems to become the woman’s daughter. But then the daughter leaves the picture and the story belongs to the woman’s son.

And hanging over all of this is the fact that the film is named after not a protagonist, but one of the main antagonists — a character who does not appear at all in the opening or closing reels.

There is a powerful scene where the daughter, Anju, meets a new slavegirl who recently worked in the city where Anju’s mother is said to have been sent. Anju has not seen her mother in ten years, so she asks the new girl if she knows a woman by a certain name, and no the girl doesn’t. But then the girl begins to sing as she settles into her work, and the song she sings is a sad tune about a woman looking for her daughter Anju and her son Zushiô.

The look on Anju’s face, as she listens to the song and takes it in, is extraordinary. The song is like a message from her mother — except her mother had no reason to believe her children would ever hear it. It’s a profoundly personal message — yet it has become something much more general, and it is now transmitted by someone for whom it is nothing more than something to sing while working. It occurred to me that many folk songs probably got their start in similarly personal circumstances, but are now just songs to us — so for Anju to hear an aspect of her life story immortalized and depersonalized like this, within her own lifetime, would be a little like getting a foretaste of her own death. The song produces deep feelings of connection, but of separation, too.

Turning to other themes, I would be interested in learning more about the film’s political and cultural influences. Zushiô’s father tells him that, without mercy, a person can’t be really human; and he also tells him that all men are created equal and every person has a right to happiness. Maybe something got lost in the subtitles’ translation, but these seem to me like very American concepts, lifted straight out of the Declaration of Independence. Does this reflect the influence of the American occupation of Japan after World War II? Or are there Japanese roots for this, too?

A significant subplot involves Zushiô’s determination to set all the slaves in his territory free, once he has been appointed the new governor. The way he goes about this is rather naive, when you think about it; he simply passes a law, imprisons Sansho, sets all of Sansho’s slaves free, then resigns from his government post before he has to deal with any of the consequences of his decree.

There is a scene of the slaves holding a wild, noisy paty in Sansho’s house before they burn it down, and it immediately reminded me of a similar scene in Spartacus (1960) — except in that film, the chaos of newfound freedom was just a transitional stage towards finding a greater sense of purpose. Likewise, one of the major themes of The Ten Commandments (1956) is that even liberated slaves need to be molded into some sort of functioning society — or else. And hasn’t the American experience shown that it takes more to set people free than an Emancipation Proclamation?

How many of Sansho’s slaves will know what to do with their freedom? And how will the elite of Japanese society respond when some of those slaves inevitably go too far? For Zushiô to unilaterally make all these sudden changes and then abandon his post is pretty irresponsible, and I am not sure whether the film wants us to see the irresponsibility for what it is, or whether it wants us to accept the liberation of these slaves on a more superficial, perfunctory level, as though it were a fairy tale.

Either way, this is definitely a good film, and one of those rare masterpieces where not a single frame is wasted. See it.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

August 13, 2006

New cartoon sets from Disney and Warner?

Next Post

August 14, 2006 X-Men 4 is in the works after all?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Clap your hands and shout with triumph! Which psalm calls all peoples to celebrate God as the great King?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Psalm 100 Psalm 150 Psalm 47 Psalm 98