Brilliant on Scales Large and Small

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2005)

KAGEMUSHA is a film I've liked better each time I've watched it. Having just viewed the latest Criterion DVD release, I found myself so captivated that I could not help but give it my highest rating. I'd grown so accustomed to the washed out colours of older prints that I felt like I was watching a different movie altogether - that is until the final unmistakable 45 minutes, which were burned into my memory on the first viewing. As others have commented, the director's use of colour and light is simply stunning.
Watching the film again also helped crystallize in my mind another pacing element director Kurosawa seems to have completely made his own: the balance between dialogue heavy scenes that drive the characters and offer exposition for the story, and those scenes that are visually driven. In KAGEMUSHA in particular, I saw how these two scene styles are completely divided. There is almost no dialogue whatsoever in a visually driven scene (I would be tempted to call these "action" scenes); these are all about light, colour, movement, and (unlike modern convention and certain film executive's fears that all must be verbally explained) use little or no dialogue to communicate what we see so clearly played out. Both types tell the story with delicate pacing and great depth - perhaps too much for many moviegoers used to a faster pace and more shallow characters (that's not a slight - it's just what we're all used to these days, myself included).
Ultimately it is this balance of dialogue and vision that gives the film such power. I'm probably in the minority, but I actually enjoy this film more than RAN, although both to me are similar in some ways, and yet unique in film as a whole. I was trying to think of weak points in the film, but I simply couldn't. To me it's 3 hours of near-perfect cinema.
Director Kurosawa has made a few of my favorite films, including HIGH AND LOW (more correctly translated Heaven and Hell), RED BEARD, and IKIRU. KAGEMUSHA now joins that list, and should have long ago if not for my mistaking bad film prints for lack of visual quality - shame on me. I will also mention that fans of movies with dream sequences (is that a sub-genre?) should not miss the one here. Highly recommended.