Sanshô dayû

With tears of emotions the word "masterpiece" begins to develop on my lips. Incapable to speak it out loud, a gentle smile surrounds my face. I am deeply blessed. (This is my immediate reaction after having finished watching "Sansho".)

In long, meditative shots, Mizoguchi fluently tells the story of two siblings who get separated from their mother and have to work for a cruel slave owner. It is an old legend of destitution and revenge, brought in pictures so beautiful, that you would want to frame each and every one of it and hang them up above your bed. Those are pictures of utter elegance, extreme subtlety and an intoxicating abstinence of brutality, of vain love and the slam of fate, which form that one condition people usually call life.

Probably the best film I have seen in 2006.

The first time I saw this film was when I was in university. It impressed me greatly then. Watching it again recently invoked the same emotion - I was deeply saddened by the horrific acts one human can do to the other. And guess what, a century later the human race has not really advanced that much in this area.

While the film also highlights the noble side of us - compassion and mercy to the weak, maintenance of integrity amid suffering - it is the downside of it that gets me. I finished the movie feeling depressed, as I did several decades ago.

Super B/W photography, a good story, and masterly directing by Mizoguchi make this a classic film of all time. Find an evening when you yearn for artistic fulfillment, and yet are prepared to pay an emotional price for it. Highly recommended for the serious film buffs.

"Sansho the Bailiff" (Japanese, 1954): Kenji Mizoguchi made an epic film from what was (apparently) a centuries-old Japanese morality tale. We watch a well-to-do family slowly disintegrate - not from events they cause, but those out of their control. How they each react, how they deal with the passing years and events, and how they find solutions (if any) are powerful, emotional, lessons in life. Can a half-century old Japanese film be useful to a contemporary American audience? Of course it can. Human issues of love, devotion, honor, greed, lust, hate, violence, sadness, and revenge are, if anything, in further need of consideration and dealing. To enhance these thoughts, the musical scoring is superb (I love classical Japanese music), the photography is in gorgeous black/gray/white with artful composing, the pacing is patient and more explanatory than many Japanese films (perhaps Mizoguchi had foreign audiences in mind – which I appreciate!), and I often felt like I was watching delicate woodcut prints come to life.

"Sansho the Bailiff" is a cinematic retelling of a 1000 year old folk tale. The story centers around a prosperous family that was disgraced due to the father's progressive ideas (fairness and equality for peasants). With the father in exile, the mother and 2 young children must undertake a difficult journey to join him, but they are ambushed by bandits and sold into slavery. This is the story of each family member's determination to reunite.

It's an excellent film, well deserving of all the praise it has received. In terms of cinematography and visual poetry, it's the kind of film where each frame could be a photo to hang on your wall. Shots are carefully composed with perfect balance, and although it's in black & white, we get the full, layered spectrum of every grey known to the human eye.

But as you watch this, here's an interesting tidbit that may enhance your interest. Pay close attention to the roles of women in the story, because that's what makes this work fascinating as not only a social statement but as a psychoanalysis of the great director Kenji Mizoguchi himself. At the time of this film's release (1954) and certainly in medieval times, women in Japan were horribly oppressed. Even in folk art, drama and literature, their characters traditionally played subservient and 2-dimensional roles. But here Mizoguchi turns that upside down, in a subtle way. Our 2 heroines (the mother and daughter) are, despite their physical limitations, the strongest of character and will, and they are the ones propelling the story forward. This mirrors the director's personal experience and, evidently, his private pain.

Raised in poverty, Mizoguchi witnessed the struggles, sacrifices and ultimately the determination of the women in his life (mother, sister) who suffered in order to give him the opportunities he needed to succeed. If you keep this in mind as you watch this, I guarantee your appreciation of this film will be expanded. Much like Mozart's famous opera "Don Giovanni" was his catharsis over his own father's sacrifices (and tyranny), here in "Sansho the Bailiff" we get Mizoguchi's heart open wide, showing us how he perceives the women in his life as the fighters, the rebels, the spirits of determination, tenacity and sacrifice. As a social message, this film certainly delivered ideas ahead of its time, but perhaps more poignant is the rare peek into the mind, the demons and the secret debt Mizoguchi felt he owed to those who taught him the meaning of strength.

Luminous...painterly...haunting...devastating...in terms of both substance and style, a cinematic achievement of the very highest order. Like all great works of art, it is incomparable, although it would not be misleading to place it in the company of the very best of Renoir, Ford, and Kurosawa. It has the same kind of compassionate humanism, high-caliber storytelling, and effortless-seeming mastery of the medium...the same generosity.

I prefer this film even to the great (and much better-known) Ugetsu. And I know now why Welles once said that Mizoguchi "can't be praised enough, really." I hope one day this film will be as well known as it deserves to be.