Le duel silencieux

One rarely, if ever goes wrong watching a film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirô Mifune, even if it one of the early ones. In this film, however, the star is not Mifune, but the man who plays his father, Takashi Shimura, destined to achieve greater fame in Ikiru, and The Seven Samurai.

Mifune comes back from the war with Syphilis, a disease he contracted during an operation. He must make drastic changes in his life starting with his finance of six years, Miki Sanjo. He finds the man who gave him the disease, and spends his energy trying to get him to stop spreading it, horrified that he has a pregnant wife.

Noriko Sengoku (Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, Blind Beast) plays a self-absorbed nurse trainee and provides comedy to an otherwise depressing film. She transforms after having a baby she didn't want, and after learning of Mifune's plight. She is a talented performer in this film showing many facets.

Every Akira Kurosawa film is at least interesting, and even in a work like The Quiet Duel, which is designed possible as something of a 'minor' work in the director's cannon, there's things about it that are striking and exceptional. The opening scene of the doctor, played by Toshiro Mifune, operating on the patient who will change his life forever, has a double-sided tension to it about not just the fate of the operation but of something else (this helps if you don't know what is going to happen). The way the scene is cut, the effect of the rain outside, the pan at the floor, the rain falling on the pan and making the one louder sound, it all amounts of a near-classic Kurosawa scene. This and the climax are, arguably, the best scenes of what is otherwise a good if shaky melodrama.

The problem might just be that I'm not tuned into this tearjerker side of Kurosawa, at least one that isn't as well-cooked, so to speak, as some of his best efforts. The premise is really good, as a doctor contracts syphilis by a mistake while operating on a patient during the war, and has to treat himself with medicine and cannot find a way to tell his to-be wife about his ailment (or, in fact, why he cannot marry). And saying that this isn't entirely 'well-cooked' is to say that the premise, while fascinating, doesn't entirely develop into a fully fascinating story. There are patches that seem to kind of coast, like something one might see on day-time television (not quite soap opera but close), and it's only in the last third that things really start to pick up dramatically.

Thankfully, Mifune is on his A-game as usual with his best collaborator at the helm, particularly in a scene where he (uncharacteristically for Kurosawa) breaks down in tears after seeing his once-possible-wife off to marry someone else, and there's a strange, cool mixture of musical instruments on the soundtrack- not quite what one would expect for a melodrama (i.e. xylophone, harmonica, harps, accordions). By the climax, as I said, it gets very good with the original patient Takata coming back in a drunken, syphilis-infected frenzy to the hospital. It just isn't enough, overall, to recommend it as highly as Kurosawa's best; Red Beard and Drunken Angel, also starring Mifune, are much better as medical/hospital dramas. 7.5/10

I find Akira Kurasawa to be not just the Master of Japanese cinema but also one of the all-time great directors. The Silent Duel is not one of the finest examples of why I think that, I do think it could've been longer and I did feel that the narrative while having a great idea and having some very moving moments especially in the final act has some clumsy patches. However, it is delicately directed and is made absolutely beautifully with well-compositioned cinematography and striking scenery. The score has a haunting sense of coolness, while the acting is excellent. Toshiro Mifune would give more remarkable performances in other Kurosawa films with characters more multi-layered than here, however he does play noble very well. Takashi Shimura would later give one of the most heartbreaking performances in all of film in Ikiru, but gives a likewise commanding performance. Norika Serigoku is also wonderful, her character is annoying at first but you do warm to her later on, and Serigoku where self-absorbed or touching does convey those characteristics very well. In a nutshell, Kurosawa has done better in my view, but I found much still to be impressed about. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Another great drama by the great director with a lot of complicated but thought-provoking issues to think about.

Mifune was amazing playing a silent character who is suffering a lot from the inside but has a strong prudent heart to not to cause hurt towards others, and the supporting cast especially the nurse were great. I also liked that this film chose an unusual way (in a sense an unorthodox way as compared to other films) to not let the sufferer reveal the whole truth to people important to him even though it might have been better that way, because that is a real Asian behaviour.

The main problem I find with this film is that the first two-thirds of the film seem to have inconsistencies in its flow of plot that sort of distorted the perception of the relationships between the important characters, and things only really start to hasten and intensify during the last fraction of the film. This is okay as a story but if the flow is more refined it could have looked a little less awkward.

A film that touches on several sensitive subjects, most notably sexual desire and STD's. The "quiet duel" is one a young doctor (Toshiro Mifune) has with his conscience. During a messy operation in a field hospital while Japan is at war, he contracts syphilis by accidentally cutting himself and then getting exposed to a patient's blood. He comes home to a woman he loves (Miki Sanjo) but knows he shouldn't risk infecting her, so he resists a marriage they both want. He meets the man who inadvertently infected him and finds that he's recklessly gotten married and expecting to be a father, so through the two men, we can see how the honorable and dishonorable sides play out.

I love the women characters in this film, starting with Sanjo who has some fine moments in the grief of her longing, but even more so, Noriko Sengoku, who plays an apprentice nurse. She had come to the clinic (run by the doctor's father, also a doctor, and played by Takashi Shimura) in a crisis of her own, having been left by her adulterous husband, and pregnant. We don't see it in a flashback, but learn that she was suicidal and helped out by the doctor, so she now works there. In one fantastic moment, she chides a cop who sometimes drops by and tells him he knows nothing about what it means to have a baby as a man. My understanding is that her character was softened relative to the original play (The Abortion Doctor, by Kazuo Kikuta), and one of the unfortunate changes was that while the topic of abortion is broached, the character doesn't get one here, and in fact it's moralized against. Regardless, Sengoku turns in a strong performance for a character that has spunk as well as a soft side. The scene where she offers herself to Mifune to alleviate his brewing sexual desire is excellent. Lastly, the syphilitic soldier's wife is played by Chieko Nakakita, and here, too, we see glimpses of a woman's perspective in marriage.

I can't help but think the infection symbolizes something larger for many of the young men of Japan, who undoubtedly were trying to be honorable, good people but were then swept up into war. Many had their lives ruined by it, and many carried shame with them in the aftermath. That gives the film an interesting extra dimension, and there is no one better than Mifune to communicate the torture of these feelings. The film is a little slow at times but because of the context, the female characters, the immortal Toshiro Mifune, and how it addressed taboo subjects as best it could under American censors, I liked it.