When watching one of the “greatest films of all time,” there is often a troubling disconnect between the amount of pleasure one gets and the amount one thinks one should be receiving. It is difficult to fully enjoy a film with the sword of praise constantly dangling over one’s head. The sheer heft of critical acclaim that weighs on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, for example, should send it crashing through the ground. In some ways, it does, as the film is not totally able to sustain a sense of superb cinematic achievement throughout. When placed next to other Kurosawa movies, it falls short on several accounts.
There is a lot going against it, as far as the sensibilities of most moviegoers are concerned. Seven Samurai is subtitled, black and white and three-and-a-half hours long. Rest assured though, there is an absorbing story. It goes as follows: A village of peasant farmers are fed up with the annual arrival of a band of marauding brigands who pillage their women and crops. The decision is made to hire a group of samurai to defend their village. All that is offered in compensation is three meals a day and possible death, seemingly enough to convince the titular group to prepare for battle. This may not seem adequate recompense, but the samurai are propelled along to their fates on a wave of unstoppable circumstance characteristic of Kurosawa films.
Akira Kurosawa is a cinematic giant and one of Japan’s most well-known artistic exports, specifically for his samurai movies. With a career spanning more than 30 films, Kurosawa’s style crystallized itself in a series of recurring themes and motifs. They are all present in Samurai??the use of transitional wipes, the dramatic incorporation of inclement weather and his impeccable shot composition. Also on hand is Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa’s star of choice.
The two men made 13 films together, each of which serves as a pristine example of the potentially fruitful nature of a collaborative relationship between a star and his director. Mifune’s style of acting, typical of Japanese films of the period, runs to extremes. In general, when the characters in Kurosawa’s films laugh, they laugh heartily and when they cry, it is violent and all-consuming. As Kikuchiyo, the “wannabe” samurai, Mifune can be both animalistic in his fury and heartbreakingly pitiful. The pinnacle acting moment in Seven Samurai belongs to him, not surprisingly enough. Talking to his fellow ronin, Kikuchiyo begins a tirade that has him stare directly at the camera in a series of unbroken takes. He attacks the viewer but does so with such honesty to the character that the audience must sympathize. It is a violent speech that Mifune invests with a combination of rage and pathos unparalleled by any other scene in the film. His samurai-peasant might not be the most dignified of the seven men, but he is the most complex. As good as this may be, though, Seven Samurai does not qualify as the best Kurosawa-Mifune partnership.
It is not even the best individual Kurosawa film, as is so often claimed. Several of his subsequent works surpass it on many levels. High and Low, a crime story about the kidnapping of a millionaire’s son, has a more engaging moral subtext, with the first 45 minutes confined to one room as the audience slowly agonizes alongside Mifune over a decision. Samurai’s battle scenes are certainly the inspiration for the modern action sequence, but Ran, Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, capitalizes on his earlier success with some of the best organized and shot battle scenes on celluloid. Seven Samurai instead serves best as a Kurosawa primer, a summary and statement of his world philosophy. It is a great film, but by no means his best.
There is a wise old man in Seven Samurai, who lives in a mill, visually and aurally linked to the spinning of the water wheel. Evocative of other Kurosawa works, such as Rashomon’s psychic??spinning around in a circle as she divines the truth of the dead??or the supernatural silk weaver of Throne of Blood, eerily turning his wheel as he predicts the downfall of a kingdom, it is a manifestation of Kurosawa’s understanding of humanity. His is a circular conception of life, as events happen again and again in an unswerving cycle.
No metaphor better encapsulates the essence of Kurosawa’s films. Each character plays a role he knows he must, whether it be a class role or a professional one. Try as they might, there is no escape, or as one farmer puts it, “It is our lot.” Returning again and again to the same place, the samurai, farmers and bandits participate in events they cannot hope to prevent, their only option being an exertion of individual will.
It is similarly inevitable that most film aficianados will at some point see Seven Samurai. There is certainly good cause to, as it is an extremely influential movie. Samurai stands as an achievement for film art, but does not represent the peak of Kurosawa and Mifune’s collective work together. If one were to solely go by the film canon, many equally wonderful films by these two Japanese men would be left out. It’s a good movie, but there should not be an obligatory respect showered upon it for tradition’s sake. The world will not end if some refuse to genuflect before the altar of stodgy cinematic gospel.
Seven Samurai plays tonight and Sept. 15 to 18 at 7p.m.. at the AFI Theater, 2700 F St., N.W.
