Toshiro Mifune can’t believe what he sees in YOJIMBO.
YOJIMBO (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Sunday, November 7, 2:00, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15
Series continues through November 21
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
Kuwabatake Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) is a lone samurai on the road following the end of the Tokugawa dynasty in yet another of Akira Kurosawa’s unforgettable masterpieces. Sanjuro comes to a town with two warring factions and plays each one off the other as a hired hand. Neo’s battles with myriad Agent Smiths are nothing compared to Yojimbo’s magnificent swordfights against growing bands of warriors that include the evil Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), who is in possession of a new weapon that shoots bullets. Try watching this film and not think of several Clint Eastwood Westerns (including Sergio Leone’s pasta remake, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS) as well as HIGH NOON. The film is being screened in conjunction with BAM’s presentation of Ping Chong’s theatrical adaptation of Kurosawa’s THRONE OF BLOOD, running at the Howard Gilman Opera House November 10-13. The series concludes with the sequel to YOJIMBO, 1962’s SANJURO, on November 14 and RAN on November 21.
In this YOJIMBO-like tale, Toshiro Mifune shows up in a small town looking for food and fast money and takes up with a rag-tag group of wimps who don’t trust him when he says he will help them against the powerful ruling gang. Funnier than most Kurosawa samurai epics, the film is unfortunately brought down a notch by a bizarre soundtrack that ranges from melodramatic claptrap to a jazzy big-city score.
Akira Kurosawa’s powerful psychological drama begins with a jazzy score over shots of a bustling Japanese city, people anxiously hurrying through as a Theremin joins the fray. But this is no Hollywood film noir or low-budget frightfest; Kurosawa’s daring film is about the end of old Japanese society as the threat of nuclear destruction hovers over everyone. A completely unrecognizable Toshiro Mifune stars as Nakajima, an iron foundry owner who wants to move his large family — including his two mistresses — to Brazil, which he believes to be the only safe place on the planet where he can survive the H bomb. His immediate family, concerned more about the old man’s money than anything else, takes him to court to have him declared incompetent; there he meets a dentist (the always excellent Takashi Shimura) who also mediates such problems — and fears that Nakajima might be the sanest one of all.