Remembering Akira Kurosawa

During 1990s, at the time of my graduate studies, there was a screening of Japanese movies in my college campus. It was then I first heard about Akira Kuroswa, the great world famous movie director. The name glued to my memories along with the flashes from his movies. It was such a memorable experience for me and my friends at that time, that we became fan of Japanese movies, eventhough hardly we get anything to watch after that film festival.

Akira Kurosawa stands great with his masterpiece art works. Kurosawa-san is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in cinema history. It is a testimony to his genius that he could break the language barriers and was able to entertain and communicate with millions of cinema lovers all over the world surpassing cultural limitations.

Among the most post-worldwar II films, both in Japan and abroad, have been those of Kurosawa-san, including Rashomon, Ikiru, and Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai). Kurosawasan has been called the most western of Japanese film directors, and it is true that in content, his films especially those action oriented such as Seven Samurai or deal with events by means of an existentialist kind of psychological probing such as Rashomon, are more readily and universally comprehensible than the films of many other Japanese directors.

The three films screened during the film festival were Rashomon, Ikiru and Seven Samurai.

Most of my friends liked the Rashomon in its presentation. Rashomon tells the story of a brutal ambush, rape, and murder, viewed from four different angles - the attacker, the woman, the dead husband, and a witness. Rashomon is an excursion into the nature of truth in storytelling, and how people lie to protect their image and interest. Depending upon which version of story about the incident, the husband was killed in a duel with the bandit to uphold his wife's honor, or he killed himself in mortification over the ravishment of his wife, or he was killed when incited to duel with the bandit by the wife after first seeking to disassociate himself from her behavior.

Ikiru is about the existential search for meaning in life of an aging bureaucrat, who finds out he has only six months to live, and the way his colleagues, relatives, and acquaintances interpret his actions. The theme of this movie was a discussion subject for many days among my friends.

And seven samurai is the incomparable tale of seven honorable samurai who come to the defense of a farming community against bandits. Set in medieval Japan, this film is still one of the most acclaimed epics of the 20th century. Read with the story of film the fact that Kurosawa's father worked as the director of a junior high school operated by the Japanese military and the Kurosawas descended from a line of former samurai.

It may be a coincidence that I got a chance to visit Kurosawa-san's land !