Scandale

It is wonderful to see how a skilled director like Akira Kurosawa can create a masterwork from mundane material. This one is a simple court case over a "Scandal" involving Toshiro Mifune and a famous singer. A sandal sheet magazine publishes a photo claiming them as lovers ... they are not, and sue the magazine. The resulting court trial is the bulk of the film. Their sleazy lawyer played by Takashai Shimura is a delightful, complicated character. Completely absorbing.

This film is about an artist named Ichiro Aoye (the great Toshiro Mifune) who by chance meets up with a famous singer Miyako Saijo (the very pretty Shirley Yamaguchi) while he is on a mountain painting. He drives her on his motorcycle to town and they happen to be staying in separate rooms at the same inn. A picture of them together, though not in any way with each other, is taken and causes a tabloid sensation. Ichiro decides to sue for libel and a very flawed lawyer (the equally great Takashi Shimura) takes the case. This film was done in 1949, yet it somehow remains relevant. Substitute Ichiro and Miyako with any celebrities you like and you'll get the idea. Mr. Shimura's character is so deeply explored you understand the pain, but may not like the man. Mr. Mifune is his usual solid self in this role and the film says a lot about privacy, hurt, pain and possibly even evil and redemption. Highly recommended.

This premiered in Japan only four months before "Rashômon" (1950), a film that marked a turn of events for Kurosawa, who, a year later in 1951, would find himself picking up the Golden Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, his name henceforth on everyone's lips.

This marks an end of an era, then. It does pair up very well with "Yoidore tenshi" (1948) and "Nora inu" (1949), its immediate predecessors, but also with "Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru" (1960). All of these are scintillating depictions of urban Japan, but they all mark an acute sense of drama on the personal level: these are "small" films when compared to "Shichinin no samurai" (1954) and "Ran" (1985), for example, but Kurosawa, in these films, shows his strengths, and the great energetic intimacy that is prevalent in "Samurai", for example, quite possibly stems from the experience of making a film like this.

I have no idea why this is often overlooked as mere "early Kurosawa", as if that would somehow de-note a lesser film. His later masterpieces are great films, but the early films of his are amongst the most rewarding I know of. What's more, this film shares a great deal with "Rashômon" (1950) in meditating on truth and how that is and can be depicted on screen in the narrative. A brilliant film in all respects, and Mifune is as amazing as ever.

Kurosawa's Scandal is thus far my least favorite of all of his films. It tells the most kindergarten of yarns: Two celebrities accidentally meet during a holiday staying at the same hotel. In an easily misunderstood situation each other, tabloid photographers seek revenge on them for rejecting interviews by taking a picture of them and fabricating a love story about them. There is a scandal, and a lawsuit eventually battles the paparazzi. Despite Kurosawa's message pertaining to the post-war Americanization of Japan in terms of the media, could a single pop culture magazine dominate the entire media the way it's depicted to in the story?

The narrative is so clearcut and unsurprising with its message-obsessed subject, the good guys are practically perfect with complete humility and no character flaws and the bad guys are cocky jerks with no redeemable values.

It's not a terrible film, however. It is, after all, directed by Akira Kurosawa who, aside from showcasing an obvious scenario about the shrewdly dishonest media, explores the Japanese cultural perception of weakness. Weakness is something intolerable in Japanese culture, yet good enough people can understand a naturally weak person. Weakness is an organic part of someone. It comes from sensitivity, feelings of inferiority, harsh luck, all of which the character of the lawyer has, and as hard as it is for the surrounding characters to do, they understand it when he gives into weakness.

I prefer the last half of the movie by a landslide because it becomes more about the lawyer wrestling with his own guilt. It's a story that would never be found in an American film because of the cultural differences and how bound to accords the Japanese feel.

This is my favourite Kurosawa film. The director was reported to have been furious at the state of media freedom under the post-WWII US Occupation, and he vents his spleen on it here. The film is a passionate condemnation of gutter press and appears to be partly based on the director's own experiences.

I have to stop myself from the overuse of superlatives when describing this film. The acting is simply some of the best I've seen in any movie. Mifune does his usual good job as the brooding and very serious motorbike-riding painter but, for once, even the great Mifune is outclassed by several other actors.

Yoshiko Yamaguchi shines as the doe-eyed singer, whom a scandal magazine tries to frame as the painter's lover.

Despite not appearing until a third of the way through the film, Takashi Shimura steals every scene from Mifune. He is in top form as the weird and corrupted lawyer, and is a delight to watch.

But even Shimura is outclassed by the young Yoko Katsuragi, playing his daughter, who despite dying of TB is cheerful and a joy to all around her.

Nor does the support cast let them down. A number of great character actors, led by the man who plays the sleazy editor, complete the picture nicely.

I unreservedly recommend this film as a must-see for any film lover.