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Review by:Cadet Director: Akira Kurosawa Writer(s): Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, Shinobu Hashimoto Producer: Publisher: Toho Year: Category: Classics Status: 1954 Rating:  |
| Description: Seven Samurai is a film that very much deserves the title of a “classic”. It is a film that I feel every person should see at least once in their lives. It has been the inspiration for countless imitators and homages, such as the Magnificent Seven, another classic film which transposes the setting of the film from Feudal Japan to the Old West, and stands incredibly well on its own merits. To get it out of the way right off the bat, the only compliant I have, and one I am sure that is shared by many people, is about the length. The film runs about three and a half hours, which is rather longer than the average running time for a movie. However, when one takes the time to sit down and analyze the film with a critical eye, the length is not much a hindrance to the film at all. Firstly, it must also be remembered that film was made in a time when people had much greater attention spans. Movies were expected to be more epic and engaging, as they were not treated like the pop culture base entertainment they are today. Back when this film was made, films were art, and it definitely shows here. Every shot is constructed excellently, with use made of the foreground, middle ground, and background. The action within the shots is placed so as to take full advantaged of every frame, and you can tell great though went into the exact positions of objects in the scene. The film also has excellent pacing and at no point does it ever feel like the film is dragging on. Another part of what makes the film so great is Kurosawa’s use of “kinetic symbolism.” In all of his films, Kurosawa’s favorite use of kinetic symbolism is to use weather, and he does so many times in this movie. One of the first examples we get is the heavy downpour of rain after the first samurai rejects the villager’s offer in town to come and help the village. The rain and darkness emphasize and underscore the depression and frustration the villagers are feeling. Their situation is looking even bleaker if they can not find samurai willing to help them, and the rain helps to show this. Another example of Kurosawa’s excellent use of weather as kinetic symbolism is when the samurai first show up in the village. As they walk through the town a fog has rolled in and covered the ground, and hangs in the air. The fog serves to obscure things, giving tension to the fact that the villagers are all hidden, as well as serving as a visible representation of fear, apprehension, and suspicion of the villagers. They are hidden in the same way that the fog hides the village. Another weather element that is used in the film is the strong wind that blows up clouds of dust. In one scene Toshiro Mifune’s character reveals his views on farmers and their motives and then storms out of the room. As he walks through the village and the young samurai approaches him, the wind is blowing very hard, kicking up dust that serves like the fog to obscure some of the landscape. Here, the dust cloud is showing how frustrated and isolated Mifune’s character is feeling; the dust hides everything, making him appear almost alone. The dust clouds are also used when the old woman kills the captured bandit with her hoe. Here the dust shows the frantic nature of the scene as she lashes out and the crowd presses and yells. Another excellent aspect of the movie is how the characters are handled. With so many characters, it would be easy to have used simple two dimensional characters that had no depth or personality; the samurai could have been stereotypes or simplified exaggerations of a personality. We could have been treated to generic characters such as the angry samurai, the happy samurai, and so on. However, each character is given due respect and depth. Each samurai has unique and realistic motivations, and almost all of them grow and develop as characters through the course of the film. This is another reason for the movie to have an understandably long running time. In order to make sure each character is respected like this, the movie requires that extra. So here the additional time is a necessary and worthwhile trade off. The movie also had an excellent theme and makes the audience think. This is not a simple action movie, or “samurai movie” where the hero fights the bad guy and wins in the end in climatic battle. Nothing in this film is black and white; everything is shadowed in shades of grey. For example, the old samurai, Kimbei, says at the end, after the bandits have been defeated, “We lost again.” The villagers are freed of the bandits, who are terrorizing them, but the samurai can not remain in the village, they do not belong and would never fit in. The villagers fear the samurai and resent them for their status, and the samurai do not trust the villagers. So even though the killed the bandits, the samurai did not truly win, so they can find no respite in their victory. The surviving samurai are once again out on their own, to wander and attempt to eek out a living. Also, Toshiro Mifune’s character has an excellent speech after the other samurai make disparaging comments concerning the peasants and their poverty stricken lives. In his speech he shouts at the other samurai impassionedly, “Who made this like this? You did!” Even though they are the heroes of the film, we are forced here to confront the reality of the samurai. Have they contributed to the poverty of the villagers, is there more they could have done to aid them? The movie takes a very realistic look at the relationships between the farmers and the samurai class; it does not ignore the bad that both the samurai and farmers do, while at the same time it does not glorify either side. The villagers are presented as grittily as the samurai, willing, perhaps, to kill the samurai in their sleep and steal their swords and armor to sell, as the dialogue suggests. Seven Samurai is truly deserving of being considered a classic film. Its long running time proves to now be a hindrance due to the pacing of the film, the excellent characterization of every samurai, and artful way in which each shot is constructed. | |
Seven Samurai
