Movie Masterworks

“A stray dog becomes a mad dog.”

Critique: Stray Dog (1949), Kurosawa’s ninth film, is generally considered his first masterpiece, or at least the first for which the term can be reasonably argued. And no wonder. All the elements that would distinguish his later work are in place. There’s the epic sweep, in which a very personal story focusing on a troubled individual(s) is told against a grand background, in this case the panorama of a defeated and humiliated occupied Japan. Dostoyevskian themes and motifs — humanism, class conflict, masculine pain and guilt, doppelgangers — abound. There are stellar performances throughout, including the first great coupling of Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura (in their fourth appearance together in a Kurosawa film). And of course the film’s elaborate visuals, formal complexities, and dramatic pacing announce a career that would be internationally acclaimed with Rashomon just a year later. If he misjudges or overdoes a few of the effects, as I believe he does, these are minor failures in a generally masterful work.

In interviews, Kurosawa claimed several inspirations for Stray Dog, most importantly Jules Dassin’s The Naked City (1948) with its realist thrust and the novels of Georges Simenon for their meticulous proceduralism. That said, the film is not a whodunit in any real sense. It’s beholden neither to the strict realism of Dassin nor to the mechanical policier approach of Simenon. Kurosawa’s canvas is ultimately larger than its influences, exploring not just the existential angst of a policeman whose stolen gun is being used in a series of terrible crimes, but also the epic hell of postwar Japanese society.

The film begins in July with a seemingly trivial tragedy. Rookie detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has had his gun stolen in a hot, crowded bus. (Guns were, of course, scarce in postwar Japan, available mainly to police and on the black market, so this is a much bigger deal than it might seem.) Murakami is unable to catch the thief despite an exhausting chase, and he returns to the station humiliated and ready to resign. Denied this penance, he continues the search, checking records, discovering suspects, and in a wonderful sequence that begins the film’s tour of postwar Tokyo, following a hardboiled female criminal through the homely housing of Tokyo in hopes of harassing her into a confession. This sequence ends in one of the director’s trademark magical moments when she relaxes and tells Murakami some of what she knows, stretching back to gaze wonderingly at the night sky. It also presages the film’s bravura 8-1/2 minute survey of the slums and black markets of Tokyo.

This sequence, shot by Inoshiro Honda of Godzilla fame, is like an anti-travelogue for a ruined city. Honda had to shoot in secret, as these were actual black markets full of criminals, whores, vagrants, and other social cast-offs. The camera unflinchingly shows the crush of humanity — lines of dirty urchins; flophouses crammed with the poor; ex-soldiers standing idly on the streets; furtive transactions; all set against a backdrop of clogged, grimy alleys in Tokyo’s killing summer heat. Everything that once-proud, orderly Japanese society had become by this time is on display here in tableaux that are echoed throughout the film, and offer a key motivation for the crimes of the gun-thief.

Murakami’s tormented journey into these “lower depths” — his disguise as a “desperate soldier” becomes increasingly real — is crucial to understanding the world the film is trying to create and to Murakami’s psychology. His search for the missing gun, an emblem of his (and presumably Japan’s) lost power, becomes a mania, and he himself becomes linked both in his own mind and by the gun with the criminal who is using it to rob and kill. In a classic doppelganger trope, both the thief, Yusa (Isao Kimura), and Murakami were soldiers; both had their knapsacks stolen on the train that brought them from the war to their home. But Yusa, we eventually are told, “chose” a life of crime, while Murakami, faced with the same dismal society that could not assimilate its soldiers, chose to become a detective. Yet the film takes pains to show that Yusa’s path was inevitable, the result of social forces that could not be overcome. Murakami was one of the lucky few to get a job of any kind at a time when American control was iron.

Murakami’s progress in locating the elusive Yusa starts in earnest when he’s assigned to a more seasoned inspector, Sato (Takashi Shimura), who begins the dual process of helping Murakami find the thief and recover the gun, and helping the younger man mature as a detective and a human being. Their interplay, the classic simpatico/clash between the thoughtful, mature teacher and the rash, obsessive youth, is one of the pleasures of Stray Dog. Takashi Shimura was never better, capturing his character in simple gestures like wiping his arms, or gazing at Mifune with the indulgence of a loving father. They also share one of the film’s loveliest moments when, from behind a delicate gauzy curtain, they watch Sato’s children sleeping — a quiet reminder that there is as always a future, and it may be different.

That future depends, it seems, on eradicating the rogue element in Japanese society represented by Murakami’s thief, the unassimilable soldier who fought a failed war. Kurosawa doesn’t neglect the technical aspects of this process, though they’re always secondary to the epic and psychological elements. There are classic scenes of ballistics analysis that recall the U.S. “docu noirs” of the late 1940s, and a “bullet countdown” motif — Murakami’s gun had all seven bullets when stolen, and he nervously counts them down as each new crime is revealed. But more important here is the rookie cop’s slow unraveling as he closes in on Yusa. His adoption of a soldier’s guise gives the usually scrubbed detective a much grungier look, making him seem less an interloper than an authentic member of the poverty-choked netherworld he’s infiltrating in his search for the gun.

The search brings him to his nemesis’ girlfriend, Harumi (Keiko Awaji). The film uses one of their scenes together to brilliantly play the class card. Harumi, like many Japanese women at the time, had one foot in the criminal world as a means of survival. In an occupied country this was crucial. One of the products of this alliance is a hopelessly expensive dress Yusa bought her, after seeing her admire it in a shop. In a scene at once magical and horrific, she puts on the dress and twirls through a shadow-drenched room reminiscent of a shadow-swathed Gothic castle chamber, screaming “I’m happy!” Murakami’s assumptions about free will (he “chose” his job while Yusa “chose” to be a criminal) are challenged by this vivid act. Is Harumi’s possession of the dress really a crime? Is Yusa a criminal for stealing the money to buy it for her? How many others don’t have what the want or need? The answers aren’t as easy now for Murakami, and the pressure shows in what looks like a state of barely controlled hysteria that increasingly marks him.

Yusa, though not seen entirely until the film’s last few minutes, is gradually revealed in a kind of off-screen portrait that humanizes him, in the process linking him closer to Murakami. Both are seen as nervous, emotional, almost hysterical men. Yusa’s mother tells the detective, “I found him sitting here in the dark, crying…” Harumi describes his anguish at her desire for the dress, and the viewer is left to fill in the emotions Yusa must have felt between seeing her and the dress, and his purchase of it a week later with stolen money. The fateful meeting between Yusa and Murakami is the literal high point of the film, but perhaps represents an overreaching by Kurosawa. Yusa’s breakdown is a marvel to behold, but the oppositional images in this sequence, flowers and butterflies contrasted with bullets and bruises, hammer the viewer and threaten to overwhelm the emotions. Kurosawa’s operatic tendencies serve most of the film, but look out of place in the crucial meeting of these enemies who are so much alike. What saves the scene are a fine performance by Kimura in a very brief role, and superb work throughout by Mifune, who, only 29 here, established himself as one of the screen’s most accomplished actors.

- Gary Morris Images Journal

My Thoughts: Unfortunetly, “Stay Dog” is one of Kurosawa’s lesser known masterworks. It’s one of the best crime films made, along with “M” and Kurosawa’s own “High Low.” I really enjoy seeing the humanity Kurosawa instills in his chracters. It gives them great depth and makes them far more interesting people. Fittingly, I watched this film on a 100 degree day.

“Strangers bring flowers to his grave.”

Synopsis: Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is granted a visit with his mother after he singlehandedly fends off two enemy tanks. As he journeys home, Alyosha encounters the devastation of his war-torn country, witnesses glimmers of hope among the people, and falls in love. With its poetic visual imagery, Grigori Chukhrai’s Ballad of a Soldier is an unconventional meditation on the effects of war, and a milestone in Russian cinema.

Critique: We are told at the outset that Alyosha is killed at the front, never to return to his mother, to Shura, or to anyone else again. Ballad of a Soldier’s conclusion strikes a single, clear tone with one of the most poignant of wartime questions — what if? What if Alyosha, decent and honorable and deserving of a full life, had not died in the war? What could he, and by extension some 20 million Alyoshas, have become? What could this everyday hero have contributed if he’d been allowed to fulfill his promise? Ballad doesn’t answer the question. Instead it tells us that Alyosha dies a “simple Russian soldier” (a citizen of a country, not an ideology) because he never had the time or opportunity to be anything else.

Technically rich yet possessing a refining simplicity, Ballad of a Soldier is a quietly powerful work that could have diminished into soapy melodrama or government-stamped rhetoric. Instead, director/co-writer Grigori Chukhrai delivered a personal ode, one indeed as emotive and straight-shooting as a ballad, to his own postwar generation. He did so with then-distinctive attention to varying responses war brings out in individual people, with moments of unmistakable (and now sweetly chaste) sexual heat, and without resorting to the clichés, stilted symbols, or pompous phraseology that did so much harm to Soviet cinema. If handsome, virtuous Alyosha is an idealized emblem of the Soviet character, it’s to the degree that, say, Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne personified America’s images of itself. Ballad is artful without being at all inaccessible, and every element — cinematography, sound, and especially the performances of the two extraordinary actors playing Alyosha and Shura — is as energetic and sharply honed as any of the best Hollywood or Western European product.

During the early ’60s, when Kruschev supported a brief thaw in Cold War tensions, Ballad triumphantly toured the international festival circuit. It was (and is) hailed as a gem-like representative of the period’s “new Soviet cinema,” and for Russians it became one of their most beloved movies while also earning awards in Cannes, San Francisco, London, Tehran, and Milan before winning the Lenin Prize at home. In 1962 it was Oscar-nominated for Best Writing (Story and Screenplay) and won the British Academy Award for Best Film From Any Source. Our vantage-point several decades later allows us a broader view of Ballad’s resonant theme. What might writer-director Grigori Chukhrai or the previously unknown acting students — Zhanna Prokhorenko (who’s as lovely and soulful as Ingrid Bergman in her prime) and Vladimir Ivashov (one of the best leading men Hollywood never had) — have achieved if politics and circumstances had permitted greater artistic back-and-forth between the U.S. and Soviet film industries? There’s of course no answer for that, though this release of Ballad of a Soldier hints at what might have been.

— Mark Bourne, The DVD Journal

My Thoughts: What a find this movie was! I loved Alyosha’s sense of honor that he touches everyone he mets on his journey with. In the end, though he was a hero soldier, it was his humanity that made him revered in his short life. The movie culminates in a wonderful scene permeated by a powerful silence. Also noteworthy was the beautiful cinematography.

“Then may He give me the strength to unhorse you. And send you with one blow, back across the sea.”

Synopsis: All the elements of Sir Thomas Malory’s classic ‘Le Morte Darthur’ are here: Arthur (Nigel Terry) removing the sword Excalibur from the stone; the Round Table’s noble birth and tragic decline; the heroic attempts to recover the Holy Grail; and the shifting balance of power between wily wizard Merlin (Nicol Williamson) and evil sorceress Morgana (Helen Mirren). With Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson in notable early screen roles, ‘Excalibur’ serves up, ‘The New Yorker’s’ Pauline Kael wrote, “one lush, enraptured scene after another.”

My Thoughts: I’ve seen “Excalibur” more times than any other movie, at least 50. My brother and I watched it often when we were children because it was one of the few video tapes we owned. We got to the point where we could recite the entire movie word for word to each other. Our copy was brought back by our mother who taught a medeval epic class at her college. It was my first real exposure to the Authurian legend and I was hooked from then on.

This movie has everything guys love in movies: chivalry, adventure, knights, combat, friendship, honor, intrigue, love, betrayal, wizards, battles, castles, jousting… “Excalibur” holds a special place in my heart because of the memories it conjures up. It made me want to be a knight. Though I couldn’t ever be an Authurian knight, I could in the sense of upholding ideals such as honor and courage. Even the music from Wagner stirs the blood. This is the movie that made me love movies. There are so many memorable quotes and images which I will try to convey.

“I have walked my way since the beginning of time. Sometimes I give, sometimes I take, it is mine to know which and when!”

“Talk. Talk is for lovers, Merlin. I need the sword to be king.”

“Show the sword! Behold! The Sword of Power! Excalibur! Forged when the world was young, and bird and beast and flower were one with man, and death was but a dream!”

“He who draws the sword from the stone, he shall be king. Arthur, you’re the one.”

“Good and evil, there never is one without the other.”

“Swear faith to me, and you shall have mercy! I need battle lords such as you!”

“I am Lancelot of the Lake, from across the sea. And I have yet to find a King worthy of my sword.”

“Not a boast, sir. But a curse. For I have never met my match in joust or duel.”

“Move aside! This is the king’s road - and the knights you joined arms against were his very own.”

“Lancelot: Your rage has unbalanced you. You sir, would fight to the death, against a knight who is not your enemy. Over a stretch of road you could easily ride around.
Arthur: So be it. To the death!”

“My pride broke it. My rage broke it! This excellent knight, who fought with fairness and grace, was meant to win. I used Excalibur to change that verdict. I’ve lost, for all time. The ancient sword of my fathers, whose power was meant to unite all men… not to serve the vanity of a single man. I am… nothing.”

“The Lady of the Lake!”

“STAND BACK! Be silent! Be still! That’s it… and look upon this moment. Savor it! Rejoice with great gladness! Great gladness! Remember it always, for you are joined by it. You are One, under the stars. Remember it well, then… this night, this great victory. So that in the years ahead, you can say, ‘I was there that night, with Arthur, the King!’ For it is the doom of men that they forget.”

“Looking at the cake is like looking at the future, until you’ve tasted it what do you really know? And then, of course, it’s too late.”

“Knights, of The Round Table!”

“We are innocent, but not in our hearts.”

“When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.”

“That’s the one thing of yours I don’t want! The quest knights have failed. They’re all dead. And YOU… are dead, too. I shall come back and take Camelot by force!”

“Any man who would be a knight and follow a king… follow me.”

“Now, once more, I must ride with my knights to defend what was, and the dream of what could be.”

“Come father. Let us embrace at last.”

“I cannot give you the land. Only my love.”

“DO… as I command! One day, a King will come, and the Sword will rise… again.”

“I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have…”