That Akira Kurosawa, what an actual legend. This is one I've been meaning to watch for literally years, since I saw Seven Samurai and Rashomon and read that this one was the real masterpiece. And that argument is warranted (although I still love the creativity and questions about subjectivity posed in Rashomon best). This film is not only beautiful and epic in scope, it also seamlessly combines inspiration from Japanese history (the feudal lord Mōri Motonari) with western storytelling (King Lear) to tell a story about greed, violence, brutality, mercy and the tragic consequences of hubris. Pretty classic Shakespeare stuff, I'd say, and stuff Kurosawa is pretty fond of himself.
This is one of those rare films that is like three hours long and completely warrants it. Kurosawa takes his time, really digging into the characters and the setting and the history before letting the tragedy sweep through. It's worth settling in and devoting an evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment