Artful chaos

It seems as if many famous directors experience a sway in their careers only to be followed by another upswing which brings them up to prominence once again. Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was one of those guys. He made many famous films during the 50s and early-60s, such as Ikiru, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and more.

But he experienced a slump afterwards (despite Dersu Usula being a decent film from what I recall). But then he came back in the 1980s with Kagemusha and Ran, both large epic films largely possible because of outside sources - Hollywood, in the form of George Lucas and Francis Coppola, helped out with Kagemusha, while the French assisted with Ran.

Ran is known as Kurosawa’s version of Shakespeare’s King Lear, although obviously not a straight adaptation. Well, I suppose it’s faithful to Shakespeare’s methods in one way - just as Shakespeare plundered old plays and storylines to write his own masterworks, Kurosawa borrowed from Shakespeare and other sources in order to make this story his own.

Right away, you can see the similarities and differences. While King Lear had three daughters, the feudal lord in this movie has three sons. But in both cases, the old man wants to pass his kingdom over to the children, with tragic results.

What the lord wants to do is split the kingdom amongst his three sons. He figures it would be better this way - he demonstrates this by bundling three arrows together. One arrow is easy to break, but three are difficult to snap. The oldest and middle son, who eagerly agree with this whole plan, can’t snap the arrows - and it’s the youngest, significantly, who objects, and who finds the strength to prove that bundled arrows can be broken.

The youngest protests in frank and potentially rude terms. He would rather remain solidly behind his father, instead of seeing his family fight each other for the spoils. But this frank talk gets him expelled from the kingdom (the youngest son’s guard also gets banished for his equally frank talk).

It takes little time for the infighting to commence. The lord naturally expects to be treated with the same amount of respect he was given before he willingly gave his property away - but almost immediately he finds out otherwise, as his status is pulled out from under him by his own son.

Actually, it’s not really his oldest son who’s pulling all the strings - the new leader’s wife is the one doing all of that. She’s taking revenge for the old lord’s misdeeds, which includes taking over her family’s castle and having family members killed as part of war. Her sudden ascent allows her not only the opportunity to damage the old lord, but his sons as well.

In the midst of all this is the most violent and gruesome sequence I’ve ever seen in any Kurosawa movie (although I’m sure I’ve missed some along the way). The old lord’s castle is invaded by his son’s army, and the old lord’s soldiers, few in number compared to the opposing team, engage in battle. Of course the old lord’s army is almost completely slaughtered, and it’s only through sheer luck that the old guy himself isn’t killed (arrows, bullets, firebombs, etc., etc., fly all over the place). Violent scenes in general disturb me in a way much too complicated to describe in a mere movie review, but this scene was definitely something which elevated carnage to a work of very grim and sad art.

Some of the more memorable images in this very long sequence include a guy sitting down on the ground holding his own severed arm, as well as a guy with an arrow shot into his eye. And inside the old lord’s castle, we see two of the lord’s mistresses stab each other to death so as to escape death from the hands of the enemies. (other mistresses kill themselves without any help) A few seconds later, the rest of the women are gunned down by the opposing army.

All of this bloody violence is played out in complete silence, with only the classical score as accompaniment, totally draining this of any possible “excitement.” It’s merely a sad spectacle for us to contemplate.

*Spoiler* At the end of this battle, the oldest son is killed, and it is up to the middle son to bring the bad news to the wife. But the wife doesn’t care too much - in fact, from what I can see, this event only helps in the wife’s plans to destroy the family and fulfil her revenge. The middle son doesn’t realize this - he unwittingly becomes her toy during a scene in which she holds a knife to his throat and makes a few small scratches while threatening to make deeper cuts. Of course, she’s just plotting her next move - a few seconds later she seduces him, literally and figuratively, into her web. (the scene ends with her licking the blood off his cuts before they have sex)

This movie is quite pessimistic, as all tragedies would be. Much like in King Lear, the old lord goes insane once he understands the horror and pain he’s wrought as a leader more concerned with his own agenda. Now stripped of power, supporters and his own sanity, he sees the truth. The only two people who remain consistently with him throughout this whole ordeal are his Fool (or the feudal Japanese equivalent) and the youngest son’s guard, who remains loyal despite his banishment, and returns to watch over him.

And the overall message is that human beings are attracted to sorrow, violence and bloodshed. This is directly spoken by one of the characters, and, as proof that the circle of violence never stops, another major character meets death by a swift beheading - we don’t see the head getting chopped off, but massive amounts of blood spray over the wall.

In terms of its look, pacing and general atmosphere, this is just like Kagemusha, and I would apply many of the same comments in that review to this one. The movie doesn’t move too fast, but it’s far from tedious, but comfortable in allowing us to enjoy the images and the story equally.

But Ran is not exactly like Kagemusha. For one thing, Ran is violent and pessimistic. It’s as violent a film as I’ve ever seen - but then again, I don’t watch too many truly violent movies. Kagemusha had a long sequence at the end which you could call violent (and with similar impact to the big scene in this film), but it wasn’t as visceral and bloody. What stuck with me in that earlier film was the story. But it’s the violence which is going to stick with me when it comes to Ran.

The violence in Ran, however, is art. It’s not “gratuitous,” it’s not “too much,” it does exactly what the director means for it to do, which is to show us the tragic flaw(s) of humankind. People in positions of power, with access to soldiers, money, and weapons of violence and death, who rule over vast lands and countries, are going to act this way, or at the very least, they have the greatest potential to do so. What Ran seems to be saying is that it is only the exceptional person who could actually use power for good, selfless means. There’s only very, very few people who seem like they could actually be decent and benevolent (or at least more so than others), instead of escaping our common animal nature. And in the case of the old lord, he only ends up figuring it all out after he witnesses the worst bloodshed, and loses his mind.

I’m giving this film five stars. I actually preferred Kagemusha over this one in a number of ways, and it didn’t help that I ended up breaking up my viewing of Ran by over two nights, but nevertheless I see Ran as a worthy equal alongside Kurosawa’s other classic films.