Film Review
One of Akira Kurosawa's chief regrets was that he never had the
opportunity to direct stage plays. His hankering for the theatre
can be felt in many of his films - including his spectacular Samurai
films, some of which have a distinctly theatrical quality to them.
The one Kurosawa film that is closest to a piece of theatre is his
often overlooked 1957 masterpiece
The
Lower Depths (a.k.a.
Donzoko), which is adapted from a well-known 1902 play by
the Russian writer Maxim Gorky. Not only is Kurosawa faithful to
Gorky's text (more so than most other film adaptations), he stages the
play as a piece of filmed theatre. Most of the action takes
places within one setting (the squalid tenement building) and the
camerawork is far more restrained than on any other Kurosawa film,
comprising mostly long static shots and very little in the way of
camera motion. This represented a dramatic departure from the
cinematic bravura of Kurosawa's previous great films and critical
reaction at the time was predictably negative. The film was both
a critical and commercial flop, although since its first dismal showing
it has grown in stature and is now regarded in a comparable light to
Kurosawa's other cinematic achievements.
Kurosawa was not the first filmmaker to adapt Gorky's socially
conscious play.
The Lower
Depths was first re-imagined for cinema by the French film
director Jean Renoir as
Les Bas-fonds (1936), starring
Jean Gabin and Louis Jouvet. Much to its author's chagrin, Renoir
departed radically from the tone and substance of the original play and
used it as an open endorsement of the Popular Front movement.
Indian director Chetan Anand's 1946 version
Neecha Nagar was closer to the
spirit of Gorky's play, and this was followed by a Soviet adaptation
directed by A. Frolov in 1952. By the time Kurosawa embarked on
his version,
The Lower Depths
had become a mainstay of modern Japanese theatre and was therefore as
well-known to the culturally minded as any other western play.
Kurosawa made the film immediately after completing another stage play
adaptation,
Throne of Blood (1957), his
inspired take on Shakespeare's
Macbeth.
Kurosawa had been a keen devotee of Russian literature since his youth
and often cited the influences of the great Russian writers on his
work. In 1950, he had directed an adaptation of what he
considered to be one of the most important Russian novels, Fyodor
Dostoevsky's
The Idiot.
Whilst most of Kurosawa's films have strong ensemble casts, only
The Lower Depths can be truly
described as an ensemble piece. The main appeal of the film is its amazing repertory of highly
talent performers, which consists mainly of Kurosawa regulars,
including his main star Toshiro Mifune, here cast in an usually subdued
role. The two most memorable performances are supplied by Bokuzen
Hidari and Kamatari Fujiwara, two superb veteran actors whom Kurosawa
adored. Better known for his supporting comic portrayals, Hidari stands out
here by virtue of the fact that his character is the only one who is
not a laughably miserable wretch. With a Buddha-like calm he
seems to float above the squalor that surrounds him, gently defusing
arguments and offering wise words of wisdom to those who will
listen. Despite his likeable persona, Hidari's character
instantly arouses our mistrust - like a politician, he is just too
smooth and well-meaning to be believed, and just when things hot up he
suddenly disappears. As the tragicomic alcoholic actor who is
forever going on about his 'vital organisms', the expressive Fujiwara
injects the one note of humanity into the film and is the only
character for which the audience is allowed to have any sympathy.
Isuzu Yamada, who was superbly evil as Lady Macbeth in
Throne of Blood is delectably venal
as the landlord's unfaithful wife and gives a suitably feisty
performance. Suffice it to say that every other member of the
cast has his or her own moment and makes a perfectly judged
contribution to this marvellous human collage.
Rather than set the play in present day Japan (which might just have
been plausible), Kurosawa instead opted to make it a historical piece,
setting it in the Edo period of the mid-19th century, a time of
widespread social and economic collapse accompanying the disintegration
of the Shogunate. Kurosawa would use the same setting, to
devastating effect, in his subsequent great Samurai film,
Yojimbo
(1961). Locating the film in the past allowed Kurosawa to make a
far more scathing critique of modern Japan than might otherwise have
been possible. It is not hard to see why
The Lower Depths appealed to the
director, as it deals with a theme that is central to his work: the
discrepancy between illusion and reality. There are strong similarities with Kurosawa's later film
Dodes'ka-den, both in its style and
approach (and it was another notable flop).
Virtually all of the characters in
The
Lower Depths have one thing in common: they are in denial of
their present sordid reality and live in expectation of a better
future, a future which it is obvious they will never see. The
wise pilgrim Kahei sees this but rather than dispel the illusion he
encourages it, saying: 'Lies are not always evil, nor is the truth
always good.' (He might just as well have been a politician...)
It is better to live with one's head in the clouds than to be
aware that one's feet are stuck in the u-bend of human misery.
The tragedy of the delusion is expressed most powerfully in the final
sequence: as the ragged denizens are happily dancing and singing,
apparently in celebration of their misfortune and life's injustices,
they receive the news that the unfortunate actor has gone out and
hanged himself. They are outraged: how dare he spoil their
fun! Kurosawa's sour commentary on present day Japan immediately
hits home with the force of a Samurai spear. The explosion of
western-style consumerism in the mid-1950s had provided a convenient
distraction from the harsher realities of life, and Kurosawa understood
better than many the social consequences of this for Japan.
In contrast to many of his other films, Kurosawa goes to great lengths to
distance the spectator from his characters. He doesn't want us to
identify with them too closely but to see them for what they are:
wretches living in a fool's paradise, like pigs luxuriating in their
own filth.
Despite the film's dark, almost nihilist tone, there is an abundance of
humour which seems to spring naturally from Gorky's play.
Kurosawa often uses humour in his films to underscore the bleakness of
the subject matter and here he has ample opportunity to use comedy as a
dramatic device. Every character in the play is inherently
comical, so wrapped up is he in his own delusions that it could hardly
be otherwise. But whilst we may laugh at their shortcomings, the
grim tragedy of the characters' predicament is never far from
sight. The tinker who neglects his wife whilst she is dying but
falls apart once she is gone. The drunken wreck of an actor who
still believes he can make a comeback but ends up killing
himself. The down-at-heel samurai whose claims of noble ancestry
are scoffed at by everyone he meets. Every one of these sad
specimens of humanity is an object of ridicule, and yet we know in
our hearts that we should pity them, for their suffering is as evident as
their absurdity.
© James Travers 2012
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Next Akira Kurosawa film:
Throne of Blood (1957)