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.

Lately I have been puzzling over Mizoguchi. I have been captivated every time by a heart of reflective images, but have had to work to unearth these against what is usually acclaimed about him. In simple terms, I think what is so vital about Mizoguchi has been obscured by precisely what has given rise to his reputation here in the West.

I think the mistake lies in evaluating Mizoguchi within the limits of what James Quandt wrote about him for the centenary retrospective: "Mizoguchi is cinema's Shakespeare, its Bach or Beethoven, its Rembrant, Titian or Picasso." That is not quite so, of course. But here in the West we have understood images and the world from them in terms of theater; we expect a grand stage where destiny is revealed by conflict. We expect to be moved or educated, to have our heartstrings tugged from outside. We expect an irrational world to be rationalized and given coherence to as a narrative. Mizoguchi does all those things some would say masterfully, and it's under those terms that we have evaluated him; a profound humanist, powerful elegies, social critique.

But in the Eastern world, in our case Japan, they have understood images in the light of the practice of seeing. They have chronicles, myth, stories, all these things that we have also used to narrate our world and which Mizoguchi works from. But they also have their cessation, adopted from Buddhist China.

We have poorly understood this tranquility as a matter of simply aesthetic consideration, this must explain why comments on Mizoguchi's visual prowess rest with vague mentions of 'lyricism'. We expect beauty from representation, an illustrative beauty. Indicative of this loss in translation comes as early as Van Gogh when he copied 'The Plum Garden at Kameido' for just its idyllic scenery.

It is that abstraction from the Buddhist eye refined on the Noh stage or the painter's scroll that interests me in Mizoguchi, himself a converted Buddhist near the end of his life.

So beneath histrionics we can easily process as conventional tragedy, there are powerful karmas at work powering life from one world to the next, here about brother and sister reborn from nobility to forced labor and out again. There is painterly space cultivated with the mournful beauty of transience. There are soft edges, clear reflections.

So not an aspiration to just formal beauty, but a way of cultivating images embedded with the practice of seeing that gives rise to them. A way of moving the world to where our hearstrings are. The result effortlessly radiates outwards with beauty from disciplined soul. It's a different thing from impressionists who, in painting as well as film, lacked the disciplined practice that we find in Buddhist art; so they painted looking to see.

I have puzzled over Mizoguchi because, all else aside, this reflective seeing is not always well integrated with the outer layers that resolve emotionally. It's like a transparent Japanese image has been plastered on top with all manner of Western-influenced frescoes - influences Mizoguchi practiced since the 30s. So even though both Oharu and this end with profound glances of a fleeting suffering world, it is just too much work trying to find their proper emptiness to let them settle.

"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.

I'm so moved. This is not only one of the greatest film of Mizoguchi but also tell us a very important precept which is almost forgotten. That is "Without mercy, a man is not a human being. Be hard on yourself, but merciful to others." This is very important precept, but how many people still know or remember it? I'd like to use this film for children's educational program. Now I know why "Sansho the Bailiff" was voted for No.1 film of the year beating so many great films like "La Dolce Vita", "Psycho" and so on.