Akira Kurosawa. I'm kind of undecided on how I feel about his films. In some aspects, I really enjoyed the Kurosawa films we watched in class. In others, I really didn't.
Take Stray Dog for example. To begin with, the entire movie gets an incredibly uncomfortable vibe because of how sweaty everyone is. When people are sweating so profusely that they are literally drenched, it's just kind of icky. Count me out. The character of Murakami also bothered me throughout most of the movie. His obsession over what happened to the gun was understandable, but it got too extreme. He took everything as a personal attack and whenever something awful happened with his gun, he tried to take full responsibility. Generally, this would be an admirable quality. However, it was just overdone and became really obnoxious instead of respectable. My final problem with the film was the slow progression of the story. It wasn't easy to follow in the first place and when the plot is only creeping by, it doesn't help the situation. When a slow plot is added with something like the montage sequence of Murakami exploring the black market, the film is nearly too unbearable to watch. Definitely not my favorite.
Yojimbo and Ran were far more enjoyable for me to watch. There was more to the stories, characters I liked better, and more action than a couple of cops wandering the city. These films didn't try my patience hardly at all (a very nice break after Stray Dog) and I was able to follow and enjoy them. Overall, Kurosawa isn't exactly my favorite director, but I'm not going to try to say that he wasn't any good. I'm just really looking forward to starting our Altman unit now.
3 comments:
Oh my goodness I know what you mean about stray dog. I just wanted to pour my water onto the screen, or throw the DVD in the freezer. COOL DOWN! It was way too distracting, and took away from any parts of the movie that I might have enjoyed. Although you said Yojimbo and Ran were way better- definitely better than stray dog.. but I still thought the story line was sort of dragging. I found myself looking at the clock a lot during both of them.
first off no i guess i don't...i agree one hundred percent with your analysis of stray dog though, i felt that the story crept along and that murakami was a little whiner. I enjoyed the last two films we watched much better
I think it's interesting that people prefer Yojimbo and Ran over Stray Dog considering that those are the two samurai movies... really I think the problem is people don't care as much about post-war Japan (myself included) and sword fighting is cooler. All of the movies were slow moving, which is somewhat exaggerated by how we have to watch them over 3-4 days, however I actually somewhat enjoyed having no idea where the plot was going to go. I guess it helped make them feel more spontaneous. And way to take a stance on your feelings concerning Kurosawa :)
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