Where to Watch:
9.3/10
FilmFascination Rating
Well, where should I begin?
First of all, hats off to Kurosawa for making a movie of such a scale. The massive sets, hundreds of people on the screen at a time, and the costume colors. I mean, I wish he had started with colour movies long before. The vibrant beauty of this film is incomparable to any other. The blue, red and yellow colours for distinct armies, the fire, the makeup of the Lord as he gets paler and paler as he suffers, the bloodshed during the wars, and the dark soil with gray smoke– these are just a few imageries to make you imagine what I saw. Everything in the film just distinctly pops up. The frames portray emotions rather than characters and dialogues. The frame where the castle is burning with the red and yellow armies divided with Hidetora standing traumatized has to be the best movie frame I have ever seen.
Hidetora Ichimonji, a powerful warlord, divides his kingdom among his three sons. When Saburo, one of his sons, criticizes his father’s decision, saying that this will only lead to ruin, he is exiled by Hidetora. When Taro, the eldest son, and Jiro take reigns of their given lands, soon the light shadow of tragedy falls. And this shadow grows darker and darker with greed, hatred, betrayal, and jealousy. This plot was based on Shakespeare’s King Lear and Kurosawa first got the idea of ‘Ran’ from Motonari, a lord in Japan, who was famous for having three loyal sons. Here, that isn’t the case.
The film begins with a scene where Hidetora is with his sons just after a hunt and that is a very integral part of the film for me. Those scenes which I found silly when the fool was entertaining them are the scenes that show us the happiness felt by all these people. Although I did not realize that while actually watching the scene, I was reminded of it more than once while watching the rest of the film. This scene is that bond in the film that makes us realise what it was like and what it became.
Looking at the huge castles and sets there is no wonder that Ran was one of the most expensive Japanese films with a massive 11-12 million dollars budget. In fact, Kurosawa famously spent ten years making pictures on how he wanted most of the important scenes shot (since he wasn’t getting the money needed to make this film). In this large-scale epic, one thing I felt missing was a memorable score. When a movie of this scale makes me go through so many emotions, I want something that will remind me of it. A memorable soundtrack plays a big role in this. No one can ever say that ‘Gondola na Uta’ does not remind them of Ikiru and Kanji Watanabe. If there would have been something that could remind me of the tragedy and pain of Hidetora, it would have made me so happy. Technically there was a score- Hell’s Picture Scroll (which is good), but it was really not used enough. Nevertheless, that is the only thing that I felt missing.
The beauty of the film is that it isn’t telling the story of a great man. Hidetora has committed sins himself – larger and more gruesome than we can imagine just from the stories we hear in the film. The picture isn’t about Hidetora wanting peace in his old age (- which leads to greater tragedy). The movie isn’t sympathizing anyone although we, at times, feel sad for Hidetora. I don’t know why. Hideora has spent most of his life waging wars and burning kingdoms, so he does deserve this in a way. But still, Kurosawa makes us feel for him. What it is really about is humans and how it is we who destroy ourselves. Like any other Kurosawa movie, humans and their actions always stay central to the film. Human behaviour is shown through the varied characters shown in the movie – the manipulative Lady Kaede, the blunt yet honest Saburo, the flattery generals of Jiro who fill his ears, and Lady Sue who has forgiven the ones who treated her and her family ill.
Everyone has their reasons for what they are doing- some understandable and others led by greed and ego. So many times, looking at everything go down, I just wondered – ‘Why?’. This all could have been avoided if this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen. But that is what tragedy is all about – a little thing messing up everything and leading to ultimate turmoil. Slowly everything just starts to seem inevitable. One action leads to another but the people who suffer the most are the people who aren’t directly involved in this chase for power. That is the real tragedy.
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