Self-consciously issue-oriented, Akira Kurosawa’s despairing nuclear/nuclear-family drama reps a serious miscalculation (he suddenly feels out of touch), and is deservedly little known. Toshirô Mifune hauls out Paul Muni’s makeup box to play an elderly industrialist with a crippling monomania about imminent atomic annihilation and a yen to sell off the family biz and move everyone to Brazil. (‘Where the nuts are!,’ as CHARLEY’S AUNT has it.) But since no one in his extended family (one wife/three mistresses/many kids) wants to go, they drag him to family court to prove incompetence and protect the family inheritance. And as none of the family issues (or solutions) seem as difficult to us as they seem to Kurosawa, the situation plays out as point-making rather than drama, wobbling unconvincingly between King Lear and an Ibsen ‘problem’ play. Kurosawa has better luck with a parallel storyline on the panel of mediators tasked with deciding the matter and focusing mainly on the doubts of Takashi Shimura, in his usual voice-of-reason role.* Except here, he’s too reasonable to stop a tragedy. Or perhaps, Kurosawa is just too eager to make a point.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura got much closer to Japan’s Nuclear Anxiety the year before, within Pop culture confines, under the guise of Sci-Fi monster GOJIRA/’54. I know, I’m suggesting GODZILLA over Kurosawa. (But only in the original Japanese cut!) To make amends, Kurosawa’s next, a return to form in his MACBETH adaptation THRONE OF BLOOD/’57.
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