Akahige

Akahige / Red Beard is 3 hours, 5 minutes long, but I strongly recommend it. It shows a definite maturity of style over Samurai (54), Throne of Blood (57), Yojimbo (61), to which it manages to subtly refer. In between was the slow-but-intense Crime/Class drama High and Low (63). Red Beard takes AK's observed modern style back to the feudal setting. One should set aside 4 hours for it, though, as you may need the break and, if you're like me, you'll want to see certain scenes again. Long composed/blocked shots and a "small" story make it seem slow, but I've found it fascinating all three times--rich in detail, with AK's familiar ensemble doing their best acting yet.

This was the sixth Kurosawa film I ever saw, in a film-viewing binge that began with Seven Samurai and has yet to satiate me. It did, however, mark a turning point for me as it did for him.

Up to then, I had only seen the B&W Samurai classics of the 50s and early 60s. The must-sees: not just Seven Samurai, but Yojimbo and Throne of Blood. The under-appreciated Sanjuro, and the light but enduring Hidden Fortress. This was my first non-samurai film from him. What I did not realise until later was that it was his career apotheosis.

Red Beard is not Kurosawa's best film. Yet when it came out, it was a phenomenon much like Titanic 30 years later. It broke the bank, it was an exercise in unprecedented creative and financial power by a major filmmaker, and it appealed to filmgoers like few filmes before or since. Kurosawa built a hospice and miniature village for his characters to inhabit, and this episodic story of a young star doctor discovering a vocation among the poor under the gruff "red beard" (Mifune) feels all the more authentic for it. It is a film of such deliberate ease and confidence that it could only be made by this director, at this point in his career. It could not be anything less than the fullest exploration of his most cherished themes - social injustice, the redemptive power of human kindness, personal codes. It could also do nothing but foreshadow his decline.

That's a lot of expectation to pile onto the unsuspecting viewer, so what do you get during those 3 hours? You get a first-class drama, Mifune's finest performance, and one of the most beautiful tear-jerkers ever to grace a screen. All the while, countless instances of technical brilliance remind you why this film could only be made by this director: a surgery covered in nothing but an extended closeup of the young doctor, an eerie seduction covered in an almost static, dreamlike wide shot, and, halfway through, the ass-kicking of a life-time and its touching follow-up.

This is an extinct form of filmmaking, one preserved in the ember of its stark black-and-white film stock. The cinematic equivalent of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton: there are ways in which you won't relate, but it is daunting, powerful, and a journey into an intriguing other world well worth spending 3 hours in, and then some.

This film is practically never mentioned when Akira Kursawas best films are listed. I think this film should be at least one of the first three of such a list! I do love most of his films very much and my private choice of his best film is always this one. I saw it only once, maybe 20 years ago, but the memory of it is still very strong,. Some scenes burned their image into my mind forever! When I saw it at a small art house cinema here in Vienna, Austria, it was like a lovely dream you want to go on and on. I left the cinema thinking I just saw the best film of my life.

True, it not comparable with the story telling masterpiece Rashomon or the complex Seven Samurai. The film does not feature new ways of telling a story. But I think it is Kurosawas most human legacy in a body of work which is rich of statements on humanity. and human weaknesses and strengths. Looking at any list of current films in the cinemas today one can only wish there would be much more films like Red Beard. Films like that can influence the way we see the world, like the current films packed with violence already do. It would be a much better world for sure!

I don't go so far as to single out any part of the story. I would wish every one would see the film as I did, knowing nothing about it except the title and the director. The film speaks for itself.

"Red Beard" is the noble conclusion to Kurosawa's monochrome period which undoubtedly contained his finest work. Although there were beautifully choreographed action scenes still to come in "Kagemusha" and "Ran", nothing was quite the same after this quiet meditation on the stirrings of humanity in a dark and otherwise uncaring world. The period is early 19th century, the place a hospital for the socially impoverished run by a doctor who manages to combine idealism and pragmatism, the two essential ingredients needed to facilitate the emergence of enlightenment. Although the great Toshiro Mifune dominates the film as the hospital head, it is the effect of his presence on the young doctor who pays him a visit that is the main theme of the narrative. Yasumoto, selfish and ambitious, has no intention to begin with of devoting his services to the hospital but one by one his defences collapse as he learns from the example of an idealist who has shed all vestiges of selfishness. There are constant reminders that medicine was at a rudimentary stage in its development and of the dedication needed by pioneers at a time when most answers still remained unknown and everything was largely a matter of easing rather than curing. I would not claim that "Red Beard" is among Kurosawa's half dozen greatest works. At just over three hours it sprawls in a discursive way. A lengthy flashback of a dying patient's reasons for seeking a form of absolution rather impedes the narrative flow in spite of some impressive visuals of snowscapes and an earthquake. But then the structure of the whole film rather has the episodic quality of a soap opera where momentum is maintained by proceeding from one crisis to another. Nevertheless it is full of wonderfully contrasted sequences from the knockabout humour of Mifune applying his medical skills to warding off a group of assailants by breaking their limbs like matchsticks to the tender scene of the young doctor being nursed back from sickness by the girl rescued from enslavement in a brothel. And then there is the rain. Where would a Kurosawa film be without those torrential downpours to remind us of the physical discomfiture that a journey towards enlightenment entails.

First of all let me say that this film is a real tear jerker. If you want to see a film that talks about compassion then you are going to want to see this film. In a world where pettiness abounds to see the big-hearted nature of the main characters and how such compassion literally changes people for the better -- you're going to want to see this film.

For years I avoided this film (like IKIRU) because it was not a samurai film. But after getting over those ridiculous reasons, I finally figured I needed to complete my Kurosawa education by seeing it.

And boy was I glad I did.

It is one of those films that does change you. Like every classic it stands the test of time not because of its entertainment value but because it is a great experience. Even months after seeing the film the first time I found myself always examining my own life against the noble attitudes of the main characters.

Yes, it's three hours long. And yes, you're going to want to spend time to digest it. But the three hours you devote to this film is worth it. If you loved TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, you're going to love this film.