Madadayo

Madadayo (1993) was the last film written and directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. Sadly, although the movie bears touches of Kurosawa's genius, it is not a truly memorable film.

The plot follows the life of a kindly professor, who retires from teaching but who is revered, respected, and almost worshiped by his former students. The problem for me was that we see the professor's many child-like foibles--which the students don't appear to mind--but we never see any evidence of the professor's greatness.

The professor taught German, not philosophy or religion, so the subject matter of his lectures couldn't have been inherently inspiring. We are never told what he said within or outside of class that brings about the fervent admiration of his students.

After the professor retires, he suffers a series of unpleasant incidents--some serious and some trivial. In each case he students come together to help restore his life to balance. In addition, they have a highly formalized party on his birthday each year. Eventually they include their wives, children, and grandchildren in these laudatory ceremonies.

The film is not boring, and it excels in the crowd scenes as well as in the scenes of wartime destruction, but it never provides a central core of substance that would have made the details and incidents meaningful.

We saw this film at the excellent Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester. However, most of the action takes place indoors, and I'm sure the movie would work well on the small screen.

Kurosawa's last film was released in the US at his death, five years after it was made. It's the story of a retired schoolteacher and it's unabashedly sentimental and heartwarming, but unlike the lonely old man of the famous English schoolteacher tale Goodbye, Mr. Chips who has to be humanized and refuses to retire, Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsumura) is different from other men in his oddball attitude and intellectual accomplishments but neither lonely nor sad, and the story begins with his very willing retirement. He's both a mischievous joker and a happily married man who likes to stay up all night drinking and singing with his ex-students in all the years that follow that retirement depicted in the film. Uchida's quirky individuality is celebrated by his admirers, and the film depicts him solely in his relationship with them. They give him lavish presents (including after WWII a nice house with a liquid garden) and an annual birthday party, and they cherish his spirit, his personality, and his funny, thought-provoking remarks.

Madadayo is based on a series of books in turn drawn from the life of an actual military school teacher. Teacher -- sensei -- of course has a special sense in Japanese. It's a role one takes on for life, and one's "sensei" is a permanent attachment based on admiration and respect. Corny and sentimentalized as this "sensei" is, he's a richly charming character and the way his former students carouse with him and cherish him before, during, and after the War is expressive of some of the best aspects of Japanese culture.

At the annual parties, the ritual is that the sensei's students chant, Mahda kai?" (are ready?) and he sings out, "ma-da-da-yo!" (not yet!). But though he may not go gentle into that good night, he does accept old age with good humor. Madadayo is about growing old, about growing old frankly, growing old gracefully, about being useful as one grows old through dignity and humor, about the mutual benefits that accrue when the old receive the respect of younger generations. It's about old-fashioned loyalty to one's school, and about respecting and honoring eccentricity and respecting and honoring the intellectual type. The former students, who are doctors, lawyers, business men, and so on, recognize that in his oddball impracticality, his "absent-minded professor" style, their sensei possesses wisdom and creative individuality they lack and they always say he's "pure gold." One might imagine them proposing him for designation as a "national treasure." Sensei is absurdly weak and vulnerable at times, witness his emotional collapse when his wife's male cat Nora disappears and he goes to pieces with grief. But importantly he articulates this grief eloquently and with a certain detachment for his ex-students. And they respect his peculiarities so much that they send out an all points bulletin for Nora and are gravely concerned for his return. (It never comes, but the sensei's wife finds another cat and eventually both are memorialized by handsome gravestones in the garden.) However silly he is, his behavior is simply more enthusiastic and emotional than others', and finally this sensei simply represents what is wisest and most human.

And sensei's wife represents a perfect, idealized traditional Japanese woman (without the function in her case of mother, however), always deferential, formal, polite, sweet, but elegant and noble, the repository of hospitality, the hearth, loyalty, goodness, patience, steadfastness: you can't help being impressed by the actress Kyôko Kagawa's supple, unflaggingly consistent, energetic but restrained performance, comparable to Tatsuo Matsumura's. As the sensei, Matsumura is an initially off-putting but ultimately irresistible and splendidly rich character -- pitiful, cute, wise, silly, tough, stridently singing his old songs and making his imperishable jokes which his many admirers never fail to laugh at loudly and delightedly. They need him tremendously -- this is the film's chief message, to value special people as they age -- and so they take wonderful care of him. When the film begins, his book sales have enabled him to retire and focus on writing in a small house. When the War comes it's completely destroyed by Allied bombs and he and his wife live in a tiny hut. At the end of the war the students build a lovely spacious house with a garden made up entirely of a "donut" shaped pool in which carp the sensei fancifully describes as "giant" can swim around endlessly.

Many of the scenes are Ozu-like in their quietude and use of a stationary camera as the sensei sits with his chief admirers and drinks and talks, usually with his wife sitting by to supply food and drink. But there is a large cast of characters and in the final annual birthday dinner women and children and grandchildren are now present. The drinking of a large stein of beer by the sensei before he performs the "Mahda kai?""Ma-da-da-yo!" ritual and gives his amusing speech is probably based on Germanic practices: Uchida taught German and must have studied in Germany.

The sensei's unflagging spirit and humor and his former students' equally unflagging devotion make for an inspiring and beautiful fantasy. It is a wise and pleasant dream, and Kurosawa's charming evocation of it speaks well of his final years.

The film was made in 1993, released in the US in 1998 when Kurosawa died, re-released in 2000. It is timeless, and any year is a good year to get to know it and chew over its many, many endearing passages.

I have to disagree with the individual who suggests that viewers who liked Ran or Seven Samurai will like this. I think the individual who compared this to some of Ingmar Bergman's work is much nearer the mark.

If you're not ready to observe rather mundane happenings in the interest of understanding universal life experiences, you probably won't appreciate this film. It takes some serenity and patience on the part of the viewer, which however are rewarded.

The English subtitles are competent, but cannot explain everything. The word for "fool" in Japanese is written using the characters for horse and for deer; hence the stew of horse meat and venison becomes a "fool's stew." And more importantly, the title Madadayo, though correctly translated as Not Yet, is very often associated with a game of hide-and-seek, with the children who are hiding crying "madadayo!" until they've found a good spot to hide. This will serve to explain the final scene, and make it more poignant perhaps...for the Japanese too speak of returning to one's childhood in extreme old age.

In a pre-WWII Tokyo, the professor of German Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsumura) decides to retire after thirty years of professorship, and dedicate to the career of writer. His students, some of them from different generations, love him and keep a close touch with the professor and his wife (Kyôko Kagawa) along his life. In 1943, the house of the professor is bombed, he loses all his possessions and moves to a simple gardener cottage. After the war, his former students build a new small house with a lake around, and every year along seventeen years, in the professor's birthday, they have a reunion with a funny ceremony, based on children's hide and seek and referring if the professor is ready to die. They ask the professor: "-Mahda-kai?" ("Are you ready?"), and the professor responds "-Madadayo!" ("Not yet?") and drinks a large glass of beer.

"Madadayo" is the last direction of Master Akira Kurosawa, and is a sensitive low-paced worship of knowledge, friendship and life. I found this movie very beautiful, and I would like to highlight some points. First of all, the character of the professor Hyakken Uchida, capable of be adored by his students of different generations, very connected to a cat, living with his beloved wife but without kids. There is no explanation, but it seems quite contradictory a man of such profile not having son or daughter. Another interesting point is the changing of behavior of Japanese society with women (and family) along time. In the sixty-first anniversary of the professor (First Madadayo), there are only men in the meeting room, in spite of war finished a few years ago. Seventeen years later, the room is crowded of men, women and children. The conclusion of the story, showing that life goes on, is awesome! Last but not the least, the music score is magnificent. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Madadayo"

Madadayo chronicles the life of a retired professor who lives vicariously through all the students he has taught. The students admire him greatly, he is visited often and many stay to listen to his whimsy and foolish stories. The professor is a child at heart, and not much really happens. The film doesn't have a plot really, and only 2 things start to focus around the story one being the loss of the professors house after the allied bombing, and the loss of a stray cat he adopts years later.

To the viewer though there is much in between stories and people to digest such as a great celebratory dinner that is held every year, and so on. To some degree I will admit I liked the camradare that I witnessed, the great dialogue, the professors childish personality, but I wanted the film to move forward and to at least give me something to focus on.

The lost cat scene was a good distraction but it did go a little more longer than neccesary. I find this often sometimes in Kurosawa's work (The lost gun in Stray Dogs, following the suspect in High and Low reminded me of this). However, the hallmarks of his great filmmaking are apparent in the dinner scenes, cinematography, and conversations. He also provides scenes that the viewer could take as obligatory (such as a death, or the possible return of the cat), but Kurosawa changes this so the outcome is not what you expect but refreshing.

However, the best is saved for last... litteraly. As I was waiting for the film to end, the hallmark of greatness arrives without question in the span of what must have been only 5 minutes. The ending just wraps up everything so perfectly, and it made me from just liking the film to instantly loving it. It gives a real insight into the professors mind who is greatly admired and respected.

Rating 8 out of 10