Quotation-of-Dream

In a Sirk film nothing is quite as it seems. Am I alone in finding rather more going on here under the surface, than might have been expected from a 'family fun' B-picture?

As we'd expect from Sirk, everything is kept tight, the actors take their chances well - not least the two, far from stereotyped house servants, played by Frances E. Williams and Elvia Allman - and there is plenty of genuinely funny comedy, primarily some well-timed phyiscal slapstick from Van Heflin.

Underneath the predictable family ingredients, there is some slightly less genial critique of middle-class American life and love going on. The mockery of Richard Denning's vegan 'Tarzan' character is sustained and trenchant, as is the far from flattering portrait of Virginia Field's careerist TV personality - women, it seems have to know their place in America's safe but stuffy 1950s society.

Yet the ironies are multiplied by the awful emotional ineptness of the two main characters - their idea of how to break the news of their engagement to their children would have seemed as horrific then as now. The 'fun' of American camp life, one step away from natural disaster, sends shivers down the spine. And at the climax, the still moment where Heflin's elder daughter (Gigi Perreau) gives her infantile father a lesson in emotional intelligence comes as a touching tension breaker - this is the first time we've seen any of the characters react or behave in a 'responsible' way. And it takes a child to get the adult to see the truth.

Perhaps I am alone, but I found Sirk's multi-layered social comedy fascinating, like peeling a workaday onion to find a diamond at its heart.

Although very different from Tomo Ushida's other late films, with its hand-held cameras, fluid 'noir' cinematography and realistic style, this is one of his unquestioned masterpieces, on a level with any of his post-war work. The acting is superlative - especially from Sachiko Hidari as the cheap and touchingly simple prostitute unexpectedly caught up in somebody else's drama - the narrative is beautifully paced, and the film fully justifies its three hours' length.

Without being one of those Hollywood-style "message" cop-jobs, or anything like Kurosawa's flimsy imitations of same (he is beloved in the States because his films are consciously in their - comparatively limited - transatlantic style) Ushida's film is a compelling thriller, with the inexorable movement of a Greek tragedy such as 'Oedipus'. It is also a deeply absorbing meditation on guilt, retribution, poverty - and most surprisingly, what we might call "the wages of kindness".

This is not some silly procedural for infants, anymore than Sophocles's drama; but it is a great film, for anyone who cares to respect a master of the medium, and gives some thought to what they are watching. (The DVD available from DVDLady is very watchable, taken from an excellent French print, with good English subtitles.)

This is the first of Tomu Uchida's trilogy of films (1957, 1958, 1959) which make up his version of the 'Daibosatsu tôge' story. There are, of course, other adaptations, but I will confine my comments to this one.

Uchida is one of the greatest Japanese directors, and he shows many of his qualities in this extraordinarily beautiful and visually imaginative film. Individual shots, especially those of Dojo and Inn interiors, are stunningly composed and wonderful for the eye to linger on.

The anti-hero - a wandering ronin samurai whose philosophy and 'silent' school of swordsmanship incline him to the 'dark side' - is an unusual character to find at the centre of a samurai film, and the fighting is confined to a handful of precisely choreographed minimalist "ballets", of great power. Ryonosuke is played by the ageing, almost immobile and reptilian-voiced Chiezô Kataoka, in one of his most compelling portrayals. His alter ego, the young samurai, Hyoma, represents the 'light side' and is perfectly portrayed by the young Kinnosuke Nakamura.

The characters and action around this pair develop a Shakespearean depth and range as the trilogy progresses. Though all is not perfect - the action can seem over-compressed (perhaps due to cuts) which works against the stately and noble pace of the whole five-hour epic. But even if this is not Uchida's greatest film - not quite reaching the consistency of 'Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji' or his five-part 'Miyamoto Musashi' sequence - it is full of breathtaking cinematography, excellent acting and exquisite artistic composition. Hugely absorbing!