"The shadow of a man"

Rating: 9/10 (19 February 2011)

Akira Kurosawa, acclaimed Japanese film writer and director, is probably best known in the west via his influence on many notable new wave era filmmakers. Here two of those Kurosawa acolytes, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, repaid the debt as it were by helping to finance the Japanese veteran's most ambitious and stupendous epic yet. In spite of its grandeur, Kurosawa would later dismiss Kagemusha as a mere "dress rehearsal" for Ran, his even vaster epic of 1985. But when watching this earlier picture's awesome pageantry and historical re-enactment, one's likely response is "some rehearsal!" Kagemusha takes Kurosawa back to his biggest hits of the 1950s, being set in war-torn feudal Japan. However the focus is very different, moving away from the peasants, bandits and disgraced warriors as protagonists and small-scale human relations as his themes, now looking at the machinations of the highest echelon of that society, with an often cold and distant eye. Since his 1971 suicide attempt Kurosawa seemed to become more cynical and detached from human affairs, not just as a writer but also in his technical style as a director. Kagemusha contains very few close-ups, with even key dialogue scenes filmed with vast gaps between camera and actors, and objective god-shots for the busier scenes.
And yet there are similarities here with Kurosawa's much earlier pictures, especially in the director's aesthetic use of movement and stillness within the frame. Check out the scene in which the soldiers hear an enemy playing a flute from across the lines. The men are completely motionless, and the only movement is a flickering fire in the background and the occasional twitch of a flag in the breeze. It makes for a considerably mystical moment. But this approach has a function beyond the aesthetic. The opening scene, filmed all in one shot, shows Lord Shingen, the impersonator (both played by Tatsuya Nakadai) and Nobukado (Tsotomu Yamazaki) all sat in the throne room. The impersonator does not speak until near the end of the scene, but our eyes are drawn to him because of his movements – the occasional change in posture or flash of the eyes – and the comparative stillness of the other two. This long unbroken take means the room, with its great floral crest, is imposed into our minds, and resonates later on when we see Nakadai in the same room, now instated as the lord.
And despite the distances between camera and cast, the colourful costumes against plain backdrops really puts an emphasis on the people in Kagemusha, allowing them to express themselves through body language more than facial expression. Lead man Tatsuya Nakadai is really adept at this, putting so much feeling into a shrug of his shoulders or a turn of his head. When you see, in this picture, the complex vocal arrangements and stylised movements of the Noh troupe, or the drummers who are able to make two strikes a fraction of a beat apart, you see examples of precise co-ordination in many formal rituals of Japanese culture. Nakadai has that same precision and control over his body, and turns them towards both theatrical gesture and realist reaction. And in those one or two cases in which we get to see his face close-up we see his talent there too, an ability to display a real look of emotional injury.
So far there is very little I have said about Kagemusha that one could not also say about the later epic Ran, with the exception of Ran being a little an even bigger production and a little more stylised. So perhaps Kurosawa was right to think of the earlier picture as being a lesser forerunner to the later one. And yet, Kagemusha has the edge over Ran in one aspect. Whereas Ran is a totally dismal and inhumane affair, Kagemusha retains the heart and humanism of Kurosawa's older pictures. Composer Shinichiro Ikebe provides a rousing orchestral score, shot through with a touch of melancholy, and this beautifully matches the tone of the whole piece. It may lack the hopeful message of Seven Samurai or Rashomon, but it has the same warm regard for its characters that, even with a more objective eye, Kurosawa allows us to share in.