Dramaturgy of RAN

Rating: 10/10 (23 August 2003)

First of all,I must say that this film will be the last and probably the best example of Japanese cinema, having tried to adapt Japanese traditional aesthetics, which is now dying. Kurosawa was very fond of theater NO, and in some films--"Throne of the blood", "Kagemusha" and partly other jidaigeki films--he tried to use the elements of this traditional theater--slow movement of actors, sudden change of tempo,dialogue with Buddhist concept of life and death, mask-like make up of actors etc. But the most ambitious attempt of Kurosawa on this direction was in dramaturgy of "Kagemusha" and "RAN". They are twins in this sense. "Kagemusha"'s story--the real person and his double, who is trying to be "real" and in the end dies as a result of the contact of two world--this world and the world of the dead--is very similar to one genre of theater NO--Fukushiki-Mugen-NO. "RAN" followed the same genre but the plot is based on one of Shakespeare's tragedy. The dramaturgy of theater NO and Shakespeare's plot were miraculously mixed and made into a quite original scenario, which in fact two-layered everywhere. So in this film there are so many terms from Buddhism and Shintoism, such a slow tempo and a sudden nightmare of the hero, which brings him to the unreal world of madness.Dream invades the real world and changes it into total chaos--"RAN" means "rebel" and "chaos" at the same time. This deep structure may not be noticed by contemporary Japanese youth, probably will be forgotten by most of us, but it is really the artistic point which the director wanted to reach for about 40years,after he had seen theater NO at the first time---total simulation of this theater into his own cinema.