Film Review
Something is rotten in the state of present day Japan. That is
the message that director Akira Kurosawa strives to hammer home in
The Bad Sleep Well, the first film
he made for his newly founded film production company after his
departure from Toho Studios. A loose reworking of Shakespeare's
Hamlet, the film offers an
uncompromising commentary on the culture of corruption which Kurosawa
believed was endemic in his country. Drawing its inspiration from
American film noir of the 1940s and 50s, this is one of Kurosawa's
darkest and grittiest films, and the ending is about as pessimistic as
it could be. To Kurosawa, there was no greater crime than bribery
and graft at the public level, and his film pulls no punches in its
portrayal of a sleazy corporate world that is mired in criminality and
totally lacking in morality. Bribery is the oil that lubricates
the wheels of commerce and middle-ranking executives are expected to
sacrifice themselves, literally, to protect their superiors.
Hamlet's Elsinore resembles a house of virtue when compared with the
moral decay and Machiavellian court intrigue that characterises
Kurosawa's bleak representation of post-war Japan. In 2002, the
RSC staged a production of
Hamlet
in a similar modern corporate setting and this proved to be just as
relevant, coming as it did in the wake of the recent Enron
scandal. Today, Kuroswa's vision still has a chilling resonance,
and we do not have to look too far to see why this is.
This was not the first time that Kurosawa had taken his inspiration
from the Bard. A few years previously, he had made
Throne of Blood (1957),
arguably cinema's most inspired reinterpretation of Shakespeare's
Macbeth, imaginatively fashioned as
an exciting Samurai action drama. Towards the end of his career,
Kurosawa remade
King Lear as
Ran (1980), another lavish period
piece.
The Bad Sleep Well
is far less faithful to Shakespeare's text, the main point of departure
being its downbeat ending, which allows the central villain of the
piece to escape retribution, having thwarted his son-in-law's attempts
to bring him to justice. It is probably this fact alone -
that the principal baddie goes unpunished - which accounts for the
film's lukewarm reception at the box office. Japanese audiences
(like their American counterparts) prefer to see the good guys
win. Kurosawa's contention is that, in real life, corporate evil
will always succeed because good men lack the moral fibre and tenacity
for it to be otherwise (and usually they can be bought off). As the hero of the film remarks, 'It is
hard to be evil' - but only if you have a conscience. Kurosawa
conceded to his audience's wish to see good triumph over evil in his
next film,
Yojimbo (1961), which is an
even darker commentary on corruption in present day Japan, albeit one
dressed up as a Samurai film. In that film, the hero walks away
without so much as a scar, having comprehensively massacred all the
villains. Needless to say,
Yojimbo
was a runaway success.
The Bad Sleep Well has a great
deal in common with Kurosawa's previous great film,
Ikiru
(1952), although stylistically the films could not be more
different. Both films feature a character who strives to bring
about a greater social good in the milieu to which he belongs, and in
doing so experiences something of a spiritual rebirth. In each
case, the main protagnoist fails to change the world for the better,
although in
Ikiru he succeeds
in finding meaning in his own life. In
The Bad Sleep Well, the hero - a
man out to avenge the death of his father (portrayed with arresting
intensity by Toshirô Mifune) - fails spectacularly to achieve his
aims, and his efforts appear to amount to nothing. Two things lie
behind this failure: the hero's misplaced scruples and the utter
ruthlessness of his opponent. In this dog-eat-dog world, there
can be no place for a conscience. It is a case of kill or be
killed.
Despite his deeply pessimistic conclusion, it is evident that Kurosawa
is on the side of the good guys and his film is as much an exploration
of the morality of revenge as it is a commentary on corruption in
post-war Japan. The main character, Kôichi Nishi, is the
one moral character in the film, the only character who is aware of the
human consequences of his actions, and this of course seals his
fate. As the desire for revenge begins to eat away at him, Nishi
comes dangerously close to losing his moral authority and, on a few
occasions, he appears to relish the power he has over his victims.
(Kurosawa shows this with some stunning film noir touches, using the
subjective camera to devastating effect.) Yet, however close he
may get to the precipice, Nishi always manages to pull back and resist
the lure of evil. He even ends up starting to love the crippled
woman he has married (Iwabuchi's daughter) purely as a means of gaining
proximity to his adversary. Iwabuchi, by contrast, has no such
redeeming features - he has completely given up his soul for personal
ambition. Yet even though Nishi is defeated, his efforts do not
seem to be completely in vain. Iwabuchi's son and daughter
acquire a sudden vitality when they discover the truth and, having
broken free of Iwabuchi's parental stranglehold, they are free to start
a new life. Even Iwabuchi, finally driven to resign his post, may
be on the verge of turning over a new leaf. The corrupt
edifice may still remain intact, but it is possible that Nishi has
chiselled enough cracks in its foundations to ensure that, one day, it
will come crashing down.
One of the curious things about this film is that, given its sombre
tone and occasional (quite frightening) excursions into sadism,
Kurosawa doesn't actually show us how the hero meets his grisly
comeuppance. As in
Ikiru,
there is a dramatic jump-cut which appears to abridge a crucial part of
the narrative. One minute, the mood is upbeat, with Nishi
confident that victory is within his grasp; the next, we learn that
Nishi is dead, apparently having come to a very sticky end at the hands
of his corporate enemies. Rather than employ a flashback,
Kurosawa uses that old Shakespearean device of getting a secondary
character (Nishi's schoolboy friend and co-conspirator) to describe in
gory detail how the hero met his end. This device proves to be
highly effective, giving an almost unbearably dark hue to the film's
final reel as it underscores the sheer terrifying ruthlessness and
invincibility of the corporate hoodlums who are running Japan.
However, the film's most chilling moment comes right at the end. Just
who is the mysterious individual Iwabuchi is seen speaking to on the
telephone? Judging by Iwabuchi's deference, which betrays just a
hint of terror, and the fact that he feels obliged to give a deep bow
to the phone once he has placed the receiver back in its cradle
suggests that Iwabuchi is a mere puppet, and that his strings are being
pulled by someone very important indeed - perhaps someone in the
government, maybe even the Prime Minister himself...?
© James Travers 2012
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Next Akira Kurosawa film:
Yojimbo (1961)