Theatrical classic

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2007)

I came to this without having seen much except earlier Kurosawa (I seem to be exploring Japanese cinema in the opposite direction to most people, finishing up with Kurosawa) and was surprised by many elements. I didn't expect it to be so theatrical, even down to the make-up which seemed more theatrical than usual for naturalistic cinema. I do wonder if maybe Kurosawa in his later period was sensitive to Japanese criticisms that he was too 'western' in his technique, and wanted to give it more of a Japanese feel - or perhaps he was deliberately paying tribute to the theatrical origin of the story, rather than the usual film technique of attempting to 'open out' and naturalize adopted plays.
I found this theatricality sometimes a problem - shots are often from afar, and no attempt whatever is given to providing the characters with back stories. I found this provided a disconnect for me - i never really felt any empathy for the characters. So much of the dialogue was in the form of soliloquy rather than natural conversation. Judging from my further reading about the movie, the subtitles do not adequately translate the subtlety of the original Japanese script, which i understand was in a deliberately archaic and poetic style - impossible to translate properly. Perhaps this is one of those rare movies where a dubbed version would be better than subtitled - a skillful scriptwriter may have been able to come up with an appropriate and distinct language and tone for the characters.
Those concerns aside, this is certainly a great movie, epic in scope and with a huge emotional impact. While some criticize the running time, i feel it is perfect, I was never bored. His pacing is perfect, bringing the pace up slowly but inexorably to the great battle scene (very well rendered, its rare that battles are filmed in such a manner that allows tactics to be so apparent to the viewer), up to the devastating final scenes. While the final metaphor may be a little heavy handed, it is immensely powerful.