A troubling war tragedy

Rating: 7/10 (23 August 2019)

Although perhaps less engaging and "ultimate" than some of his best works (Bluebeard, Ikiru, Seven Samuraï, Ran...), Akira Kurosawa's Palme d'Or recipient still is quite a movie to behold.
By showing almost none of the war elements in-frame, Kurosawa probably made one of the more troubling war tragedies in his filmography with Kagemusha, a collection of majorly still paintings rimmed with stunning and expressionnist backdrops that transform mere sunlight (both real and obviously artificial) into pools of blood, in-between his usual mastering of ensemble framing and picturesque composition in regards to the political drama that is the crux of the movie's narrative.
The visual and dramatic device of doubles, shadows and ghosts are reminiscent of Hitchcock's formalist work on figural re-incarnation such as it can be seen in Vertigo (1958) or Rebecca (1948), although merged with Kurosawa's more oriental sensibilities as far as the mise en scène of relationships and the use of movement and nature (the wind is especially integral to some of the shots and/or scenes).
I definitely prefer the more memorable and magnificently shakespearian Ran amongst Kurosawa's later works, but Kagemusha's sort of off kilter approaches, its restraint, its use of both atmospheric, minimalistic and orchestral music and its slow, light yet somewhat pessimistic ambiance that drive sparks of humour towards a most dire and bitter ending give it a bizarre spot in the man's filmography, in a majorly positive mannor