Ran

Rating: 9/10 (26 September 2006)

﻿ Ran
The story opens with a hunting expedition. The men are of royalty. They sit in the fields surrounded by the King's accouterments and dine, discussing political matters, when the king announces his resignation and assignment of the throne to his eldest son, Taro (in yellow). The youngest male, Saburo (in blue), objects and is banished.
As time passes, the king realizes the changing of leadership status has caused a perceived decline in respect from Taro, and small acts of false pride result in his banishment from the castle. The brings rise to evolves into a complicated political struggle from factions previously beaten into submission from the very family now feuding within itself.
Suspicions are fueled by the daughter of one of these subservient clans (Kaede,) and she is a strong, wily woman with great ambition and the will to win. Taro and Jiro (in red,) stir a cauldron of debate resulting in Taro's assassination and Kaede's self professed machinations for her own ends only, with no love lost over her dead husband. She seduces Jiro, winner of the brothers' duel.
Meanwhile, the old king wanders the outdoors in an up-welling of senility and despair. His face becomes increasingly white and mask-like, as if one of the living dead. His wandering fool companion (a hall mark of Shakespearean tragedy,) watches him pick flowers aimlessly and declares "only the mad are sane." Like Saburo, the fool, Kyomani, lives in the same paradox of wandering homeless as a price for telling the truth.
More of the ranks who fell to the Ichimonji clan are revealed: Suei and Tsurumaru, two siblings defeated by the old king. One was subjected to marriage to a royal son, and the other was blinded as a price for sparing his life. Now the old king's exploits are beginning to glow in stark relief. Now the old patriarch of peace is seen from the other side.
Old Ichimonji and the fool seek refuge in Tsurumaru the blind's house. The young man has nothing of substance to offer except to play a song on the flute after he declares "Hospitality of the heart is the only pleasure I have left." Even in total impoverishment, happiness is a possibility.
Jiro is cajoled and prompted by Kaede to carry out her designs. She even over powers him physically to gain his compliance and to seduce him. The one who assassinated his oldest brother is spineless with this woman; this woman who tears apart the whole cabinet of trusted officials and has them all extradited.
Out in the wilds, the old King "shelters in the ruins of the castles he burned," as Kyomani the fool states. Manjo, a former cabinet adviser, finds the pair and persuades Kyomani that Saburo must re-connect with his father. Meanwhile, Jiro dies under Saburo's sword and outside forces seek to encroach upon castle three, Saburo's former domain. Saburo's men prevail, and Saburo finds his father in the woods, demented and run down, and tries to reconcile. They do, but the son is immediately killed by a bullet and never knows the spoils of his army's victory on castle three.
The summation of the plot: the old king asks "are there no gods?" and Kyomani replies "The gods weep...it is we who can't save ourselves." This hails back to the question in Rashoman.
Kaede is killed by Jiro's former adviser, the king is buried, and I won't spoil the end for you.
It is King Lear, The God Father, Death of a Salesman, and The Brothers Karamazov. Overwhelming, breath taking, holographic like a Rodin sculpture. You won't see the likes of such a film maker again.
I give this a 9.