Kurosawa - Take two

For me, most of the critically acclaimed directors tend to fall in one of three categories:

1. I admire their movies and can fathom their greatness (Satyajit Ray, Orson Welles)
2. I dont like their movies, but nevertheless understand why others can consider it to be great (PT anderson movies)
3. I dont understand or like their movies, but when I read and research about them, I develop a grudging respect (some Kubrick movies)

Unfortunately, Kurosawa doesnt fall into any of the above categories. I thoroughly disliked his movies, didnt understand why people considered them great and nothing I read could convince me otherwise. Obviously, the fault lies in my perception, because so many people cannot be wrong. And it is extremely frustrating to feel deprived of what is often cited as the best, celluloid has had to offer.

Let's go through some of the reasons why he's considered great and why I feel he doesnt measure up. There are a lot of subjective views in there, so I can understand refuting and discussion is difficult.

Kurosawa's plots have often been proclaimed as innovative and path-breaking. But Seven Samurai milks one of the oldest conflicts present in literature which was exploited from David & Goliath to Lagaan, that of human spirit enabling weak to prevail over the oppressive. Rashomon's plot isnt original either. Intelligence has often been defined as the capability to look at an issue to from multiple perspectives. Most authors start off their writing by analyzing a situation from multiple character perspectives. I dont understand why making a movie about it makes it so great. The fact that all the perspectives are different in Rashomon helps matters, but not much and almost immediately gets degraded by the sermonistic premise and ending.

Much has been said about AK's cinematography. I agree the shots were immaculate, but I couldnt find myself being impressed. Black and White intrinsically tends to be more expressive than Color. I didnt find any innovative camera angles or shot framing or lighting that hadnt been done earlier. Yes, the lighting was perfect, the framing precise, but it wasnt stylized. Which is not a bad thing, but the under-stylized and consistent body length shots gives the movie a documentry-like feel and by definition, in documentaries, cinematography is unobtrusive. Which makes hyping its cinematography redundant. Compare this with the long shots in Citizen Kane of Kane's wife sitting among puzzle pieces next to fireplace. Or that of the medium shot of stippled sunlight through tree leaves on Sydow in Seventh Seal. These shots instincively create a lingering sense of loneliness (in Kane) and happiness (in SS). I couldnt find any such memorable shots in Kurosawa's films (except maye be the rain and the temple in first few scenes of Rashomon, except I dont know what its meant to convery apart from the fact that its raining).

Kurosawa has been known to be fastidious about his shots (apparently he used black water in the rain shot in Rashomon, beccause clear water didnt bring out the contrast enough). But fastidiousness is not really a measure of greatness, unless there are results to match it. The "silences", that I found so alluring in "Wild Strawberries" are merely tiresome in AK's films. In fact, driven by extreme boredom, I tried watching a part of his film at 2x speed. I was somewhat surprised to find the effect quite pleasing and movie proceeding much more sanely. There wasnt one scene where I remember that audio added a new dimension to the frame (for instance, compare with the gurgling sound of respirator in the aquarium in opening scenes of The Graduate, which brings out the suffocation within Hoffman so effectively). Some scenes that were meant to be funny looked straight out of a cheap Zee TV comedy show (the horse training scene in Seven Samurai). But I'll let that pass because it could have been a cultural reference.

But what I cant let pass is the ATROCIOUS acting in AK's movies. Toshiro Mifune, proclaimed to be best among the cast, is uniformly jarring (especially in Rashomon). There's grim concentration on his face one second, raucous laughter the next and the cycle continues ad nauseum (esp in the fight with Takehiro in the woods). I can admit other points in this blog are subjective, but I really really find it hard to believe that anyone can call his acting good with a straight face. His laugther was so annoying that I was forced to turn off the volume and subsist on subtitles alone for a while. Most of the characters were so over the top, that had it been a non-kurosawa film, I'm sure they would have been shredded by critics.

Some AK fans come across more apologetic than ethused. They say what he did might be common now, but he was the first to do it. This oft-repeated reasoning is specious. While we all know the travails of creating something for the first time, we tend to overlook that there was precious little done in Japanese movies till then. So it makes the task of coming up with something new that much easier.

I have often felt western critics are over-accomodating about movies coming from Asia. Maybe its just the exotic factor, maybe its just feel-good act of promoting foriegn movies to US public. You'd often find them rating "good" Bollywood movies as "brilliant" and rank bad movies as "colorful" (example: Dev Daas). I often wonder if this maybe the reason for the west vastly overrating Kurosawa's movies.

So people, please please tell me, what exactly is it that makes Kurosawa great. And dont say its the 100 cuts for a 2 second shot, because I was watching carefully (even when I was fast forwarding) and I got nothing. And no TEHO (To each his own) type comments please, because I'd really like to upgrade Kurosawa to level 2, or at least level 3.