davebert wrote:I've been intrigued by I Live in Fear, but have yet to catch it...
It has I think Toshiro Mifune's best performance. The movie is as complex in its study of character and social situation as any Kurosawa; but I have some reservations about it. I think Kurosawa leans too heavily into melodrama and sentimentality and lets the movie get away from him a bit (its heavy-handedness doesn't help). However, when it's at its peak, and it frequently is, it's as powerful a film as anything he's done. If I were to refer to any Kurosawa as an "interesting curiosity," I would certainly choose this one over Drunken Angel, which I think is a marvelous movie with one of Shimura's most surprising performances. As a practise-piece for Stray Dog (his best of the pre-Rashomon period), it is damn fine movie-making.
soma wrote: I have not yet seen Drunken Angel, The Bad Sleep Well, I Live in Fear: Record of a Living Being, Madadayo or Dersu Uzala, but plan to do so.
Drunken Angel is actually the one I would recommend most. I mention its qualities above, but I should point out that it was one of the most truly surprising Kurosawa experiences I've had. See it for Shimura's performance alone, which is probably best appreciated while keeping Ikiru in mind. Mifune is a tight ball of energy; the climactic knife fight is Kurosawa in peak form.
I'll second davebert's recommendation for The Bad Sleep Well, and only add that it falls just centimetres short of being truly great.
I Live in Fear (Record of a Living Being) I've already talked about; Madadayo is an often very sentimental movie. I recall Henrik (Dvdane) aptly referring to it as "a Japanese Mr. Chips." If you can stand the sentimentality, and an overlong section mourning a lost cat, it is a very fine movie, and especially poignant being Kurosawa's last picture.
soma wrote:The Hidden Fortress, Stray Dog, Kagemusha and Dreams are all Kurosawa films I enjoyed and appreciated, but not up there with his best in my opinion. Sanshiro Sugata was interesting to see, being his first film, but was fairly simplistic. The only Kurosawa film I've seen and not enjoyed though, is The Idiot.
I'm a bit surprised you don't rate Stray Dog with his best work. Dreams, for all its flaws, is to my mind his last masterpiece, but my view may be a bit eccentric. The key to truly appreciating it is to understand that it was a
necessary movie. The Hidden Fortress is as entertaining a comedy as Sanjuro; Sanshiro Sugata is an astonishing debut. The Lower Depths hasn't been mentioned yet, but I'll pipe up and say it's one of his most formally interesting films. Kurosawa uses his formal innovation to illustrate the problems of filming plays while at the same demonstrating its solution. That he makes his mature style of multiple camera, deep-focus work fit the precise requirements of turning the stage into cinema without any twisting or contorting is highly pleasing.
