The IMDB Top 50 Challenge #14 Seven Samurai

The highest ‘world cinema’ entry in the IMDB Top 50 might also be the most influential on the list. Despite its Japanese origins, Seven Samurai has informed westerns, war movies, heist films and many, many more since its release in 1954. Any picture you’ve ever seen which puts together a team to carry out a mission owes a debt to Akira Kurosowa’s masterpiece...

In ancient Japan, a rural village is under siege from a gang of bandits who repeatedly return to steal their crops and leave the inhabitants teetering on the brink of starvation. Unable to defend themselves, they turn to the samurai. These warriors-for-hire are almost as feared as the bandits themselves, but represent the villagers’ only hope of a better future.

Seven Samurai is a huge, sprawling movie – neatly divided by an intermission. The first act concerns itself with bringing together the warriors themselves. It’s a process beset by difficulties – not least the villagers’ inability to pay anything more than three meals a day in return for the warriors’ services. But, the job of samurai implies a certain level of honour and nobility, and as such, the group are forged. Once assembled, the second act sees the samurai training the townsfolk and fortifying the village before the inevitable attack – and subsequent battle.

There’s an awful lot going on in the film, which explores the social traditions of ancient Japan, the caste and feudal systems and the historic role of the samurai. There’s even a romantic subplot. But for a more casual viewer, there’s still much to be admired in the masterful way Kurosawa realises his vision.

Despite the appearance of dozens of characters, each is distinct and developed. Wise master Kambei (Takashi Shimura) is a grizzled veteran of enormous calm and gravitas. Early in proceedings he reveals his skill for strategy by disguising himself as a priest (shaving his head in the process) and saving a young hostage from his kidnapper. He spends the rest of the movie contemplatively rubbing his cropped hair whenever his mental faculties are called upon. At the other end of the spectrum, Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune) is a rambunctious character who acts on impulse and plays to the crowd (not least in his dealings with an untameable horse), although he is fiercely brave and, ultimately, a true inspiration. 

The siege on the village is staged brilliantly, with Kambei’s plans explained lucidly as he walks the other samurai around the village, pointing out points of strength and weakness on a map. As the bandits approach, the audience is already aware of how the village will defend itself which, far from spoiling the surprise, lends a real air of ‘us versus them’ to proceedings.

Despite its length, the huge array of characters and the labyrinthine plot, Seven Samurai remains readily accessible and visually stunning, with some beautifully composed shots and superbly constructed set-pieces. The print has not aged well, and some of the conventions of Japanese society are a little mysterious, but allowing that to deter you would be absurd: Seven Samurai is not considered a classic for nothing.

THE IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #45 Spirited Away

First, a disclaimer: I am a huge fan of Japanese culture. My favourite author by far, Haruki Murukami is a Japanese writer whose books are set solely within his native country. I am a regular sushi consumer. I have been known to partake in karaoke. But I draw the line at anime.

It’s just not an art form I’ve ever had any affection for. I don’t like the style, I don’t like the way the characters look, I don’t like the way they speak and I especially hate it when they get emotional and weird things start happening to their screwed up, tightly closed, teary eyes. So it was with a heavy heart that I prepared to sit through two (yes two!!) hours of Spirited Away.

The storyline will be familiar to anyone well versed in children’s films and literature. Borrowing heavily from the likes of Alice in Wonderland, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and Labyrinth, the tale tells of little Chihiro, a girl miserably forced to move house and abandon her childhood friends. On the journey, she and her parents chance upon an abandoned theme-park. Here, her mother and father discover a mysterious buffet and are instantly turned into pigs having ‘gobbled up the food of the spirits’. And so begins Chihiro’s quest to restore her parents to their natural state.

Her journey through the spirit world sees her take employment at a ghostly bath-house – a place inhabited by all manner of creepy and strange characters. Like the stories which inspired Spirited Away, the main interest here lies not with the central protagonist but rather with the cast of eccentric and weird caricatures she meets along her journey.

It’s a good job: Chihiro is an intensely irritating child. Much of the blame for this can be apportioned to her voice: she shouts and whines constantly, barely able to display any emotion other than wounded confusion. There’s a scene where her mouth is magically sealed shut – it’s arguably the best moment in the whole movie.

Thankfully, some (but by no means all) of the characters surrounding Chihiro are charismatic and memorable. It’s in these characters that the animators really earn their crust, creating a combination of hideously curious creatures capable of eliciting genuine sympathy – even from a cynical audience. The problem with this ensemble is that they don’t quite hang together properly: some of them look like they belong in a different film entirely.

As a result, Spirited Away looks like something of a mish-mash: a collection of scenes and characters forced together to create a feature length film. Perhaps less ideas and a more compact running time would have resulted in a cohesive movie which felt less episodic – and less of an ordeal.

Tokyo Sonata

More famous for his work in the thriller and horror genres, Tokyo Sonata sees Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa take a radical departure into family drama. Here, he leaves behind his familiar style and focuses more tightly on the more humdrum and everyday – although there is a touch of horror to the escalating and inevitable chain of events at the film’s centre. Focusing on how redundancy can affect a family, the film is just as relevant now as upon its cinematic release – when it won an audience award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Loyal company man Ryuhei (Teruyuki Kagawa) loses his job thanks largely to a management shake-up which he was partly responsible for. Too ashamed to admit the truth to his wife, Ryuhei instead stages an elaborate charade designed to fool her into believing nothing has changed. Each day he dresses for the office, leaves home and spends hours applying for jobs he’s unlikely to get.

Despite his pretence, wife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumu) soon realises the truth. Rather than embarrassing her husband with this knowledge, however, she feigns ignorance in an attempt to preserve Ryuhei’s pride. Their sons, meanwhile, shoulder burdens of their own: Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) is also struggling to find work and applies to become an international volunteer for the US military – an implied challenge to his father’s patriarchal role as chief provider. And their younger son, Kenji (Inowaki Kai), leads a similar double life to that of his father – sneaking out to buy piano lessons with his lunch money despite having been strictly forbidden not to do so…

Tokyo Sonata is an interesting, if not entirely successful film. Where Kurosawa has succeeded is in the creation of the world in which the film is set. It’s a bleak and depressing place filled with corrugated iron, trains roaring past just a little too close for comfort, and suffused in dull grey. This visual style extends to the filming of shots which are usually framed geometrically – and often filmed through angular objects like banisters and bookcases. It’s oppressive and depressing – exactly the background required for the narrative.

At the centre of this dull world is Ryuhei: a thoroughly strange character. His plight is hard to comprehend – he seems unemployable after losing his job despite having held a position with some prestige. Perhaps he’s been institutionalised after years of service for the same firm – a little more exposition would be welcome.
His unravelling is easier to understand. Despite being a meek and mild character in public, Ryuhei is a strongly proud and patriarchal figure at home. Admitting how far he’s fallen never seems like an option for him – but this creates a strangely paradoxical figure. The first problem with the character is that he’s almost entirely unsympathetic. He does very little to win over the audience – and in some violent outbursts against his own family, he’s very dislikeable. Played against his semi-comical attempts at hiding his redundancy, this almost creates two characters. This isn’t a problem in itself – hundreds of movies have toyed with such ideas over the years – but here it jars thanks to the wildly different styles employed in depicting the separate facets of his life.

Ryuhei’s family life is depicted in very stark terms: quiet, contemplative and with occasional flashes of violence, there is little humour or warmth to these scenes at all. In direct contrast, scenes of Ryuhei queuing for food at the local soup kitchen, befriending fellow self-deceiving job-seekers and scrubbing toilets are injected with a kind of knockabout, light-hearted humour which doesn’t gel well with the grim domesticity on show.

The more humorous scenes are certainly the film’s strongest. Kenji’s porn-based revelation about his unreasonable teacher is laugh-out-loud funny and a wonderfully cringe worthy scene which takes place over dinner at a colleague’s house almost needs to be watched between your fingers. Better still is a job interview in which Ryuhei names his most employable skill as karaoke – it’s a scene which recalls Ricky Gervais’ The Office.

A pretty convoluted subplot soon evolves which distracts entirely from the real domestic drama, as Megumi is kidnapped by a would-be burglar. It’s a charismatic performance from Koji Yakusho – but whether these scenes even belong in this film is highly questionable. And therein lies the problem with Tokyo Sonata – it’s a film which has no clear sense of identity. It’s not taut or tight enough to be a domestic drama, not funny enough to be slapstick, and not dark enough to be black comedy. Perhaps the latter would have been best suited to a man of Kurosawa’s talents, but instead, he’s fallen between several stools.

Tokyo Sonata has received largely positive notices, but that is perhaps largely due to the topicality of its central themes. Set against the background of the current economic climate, it’s easy to see how the story has spoken to reviewers and resonated with audiences. But taking a step back and looking objectively, it’s just not a very good film. A director more experienced in this field might have taken the bare bones and produced something magnificent, but Kurosawa’s first attempt in this area betrays his lack of experience in this genre.

Norwegian Wood

More than twenty years after Haruki Murakami’s novel was released, Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung has turned Norwegian Wood into a feature film. Long considered unfilmable due to its introspective nature and inner dialogues, it was a brave move for Tran to take it on – especially as Murakami (and his fans) are famously protective of his work. But after a long dialogue with the author, the movie was given the green light. Have Tran and his cast done justice to the source material?

Set in 1960s Japan, Norwegian Wood focuses on 19-year-old Toru Watanabe and his relationships with two different women – the excitable, expressive Midori and the inward-looking, melancholic Naoko.

Naoko was Toru’s best friend Kizuki’s girlfriend, until Kizuki committed suicide at the age of 17. That tragedy that has led to Naoko suffering a breakdown: a depression which has led to her seeking refuge in a quiet country sanatorium.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Watanabe begins a flirtatious friendship with fellow student Midori, leaving him to negotiate his way through two complicated and contrasting relationships…

Opening with a quiet montage of Toru (Kenichi Matsuyama), Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) and Kizuki (Kengo Kôra) playing pool and fooling around on a farm and eating an ice lolly, Tran quickly introduces the three central characters. That one of them will be almost entirely absent from the remainder of the movie, as Kizuki is seen committing a low-key and lonely suicide as he asphyxiates himself in his car (his presence permeates the action nonetheless). It’s an unusual way to begin a film, requiring little of the audience other than objective observation. With barely a hint of emotion expressed on screen, there is little opportunity to feel sympathy as might be expected. Instead, the audience is made immediately aware that the style of the film will be somewhat detached.

Central to the plot and style of the piece is Toru. He appears in almost every scene, yet barely seems to inhabit them. He’s something of a blank canvas, often expressionless and usually playing second fiddle to whichever other characters appear alongside him. It’s a strangely beguiling performance from Matsuyama, and he’s a likeable character despite doing very little in real terms. Instead, he provides the backdrop for the more intriguing performances which revolve around him.

The most interesting of these is Kiko Mizuhara as Midori. She’s certainly the most recognisably ‘normal’ character – lively, flirty and funny. Sadly, she’s underused and appears far too fleetingly. The same might also be said of Nagasawa (Tetsuji Tamayama). He’s enigmatic, interesting and amoral. Although his purpose is presumably to provide a moral barometer for Toru, the film would certainly have benefited by revealing more of him.

Although Toru’s relationships with Midori and Nagasawa are important, they play second fiddle to his dysfunctional friendship/courtship with Naoko. Following the suicide of Kizuki, Naoko has unravelled mentally. Following a tenderly filmed sex scene with Toru, she retreats into herself and eventually disappears to a country retreat where she lives a quiet life alongside roommate Reiko (Reika Kirishima). After a written correspondence with Toru, he eventually visits her to discuss where their future lies. The scenes between the two are beautifully shot, but ultimately hard to engage with. The dialogue is stiff, and the sense that there is any love between them is hard to believe given that it is only expressed vocally in very plain speech. Some explanation of their inner dialogues occurs by having them read out their letters as a voiceover, but a sense of true warmth and love between them still remains hard to swallow. It weakens the film enormously that the central relationship is so unbelievable.

What does work wonderfully well is the cinematography. Norwegian Wood is simply sumptuous to look at and has a clear artistic vision. Interior scenes are often shot in medium close-ups leading to a sense of claustrophobia – particularly in those scenes between Toru and Naoko. Tran also utilises very clear colour schemes, often bathing night time sets in just one colour – it’s unsubtle but beautiful. Interiors during daylight hours appear to be more naturally lit, utilising the daylight which streams in through the picturesque windows.

Exteriors are exquisitely shot. Wintry country scenes are framed fantastically and lush green countryside is displayed vibrantly. These beautiful vistas provide an instant and obvious contrast with the cluttered city sets of Tokyo. They are imbued, perhaps, with even more sadness as the camera lingers slowly and silently over vast expanses of emptiness. Such wonderful cinematography ensures that even in its more frustrating moments, Norwegian Wood remains extremely watchable.

Unfortunately, those frustrating moments occur too often. When translating a novel to the screen, one of the inherent dangers is that so much of what is written is not said (or at least said out loud). With Toru as the central character and commentator, Murakami’s novel has a depth and richness which is sadly lacking from Tran’s movie. It’s also a far more hurried version of the story with central characters marginalised to the point that their role in proceedings becomes puzzling – particularly Reiko’s surprising part in the story’s denouement.

Bringing Norwegian Wood to the silver screen was always likely to be challenging. And it’s a challenge which Tran Anh Hung only partially passed. His film is stylish and often visually stunning, yet lacks emotional depth despite some good acting performances. The plot moves inconsistently – too fast in parts, too slow in others – and ultimately characters’ motives are not as fully explored or explained as they might have been. Altogether, it’s an interesting yet flawed attempt.