Perhaps the most fascinating thing about Samurai Rebellion is the way Toshiro Mifune defies our expectations as the 18th century samurai Isaburo Sasahara. The opening shot is typical enough: Isaburo stands with sword in hand, his stance firm, his face masked in determination. There is no movement and yet he is exploding with energy. This is classic Toshiro Mifune. He steps forwards and, in one fell swoop, slices his opponent in half. A dummy made of straw falls to the ground. He is testing swords.
It turns out that there isn't much use for sword mastery in peacetime. Isaburo, despite all his martial prowess, is a henpecked man. He carries himself in such a way that we barely recognize Mifune at all. There is no brazen stride here; no mocking glean in his eyes. Gone is the bravado. Instead, we are presented with a man who does his best to uphold the honor of his family name and appease his shrieking wife. It's like Clint Eastwood being something other than Clint Eastwood, like a planet without gravity. From the start, we sense this energy in Isaburo and then watch as it is crammed down by etiquette, societal expectations, and the wills of other people. When this energy is finally loosed and the transformation takes place, it's electrifying to hear Isaburo declare: “For the first time in my life I feel alive!”
Yet this transformation would be nothing if not for its gradual progression. Director Masaki Kobayashi, much like Neil Blomkamp in District 9, understood the importance of crafting a strong human drama to wrap his action scenes around. For the first hour and a half of its two hour run time, there is not a single action scene in the entire film. Instead, the audience is invested in the emotions of a family attempting to resist the machinations of a greedy lord. Bluff meets counter bluff as the family attempts to win a political game that is clearly stacked against them. Yet, Samurai Rebellion surpasses District 9 on two accounts: while both films take time to skillfully build to their climatic finales, District 9 throws it all away on idiotic heroics and video game tropes while Samurai Rebellion only continues to escalate the stakes right up to its final moments. Furthermore, Samurai Rebellion's finale remains firmly planted in its gritty realism while District 9 floats off into comic book land, cheapening much that preceded it.
Nonetheless, we would be all too fortunate to have more films like District 9 today. Too often, modern action filmmakers are obsessed with carrying us from one set piece to the next. A battle in a laboratory, a chase down the highway, a fist fight in a factory, a warzone in the jungle, and on and on. Since no time is given to develop characters and thereby heighten the dramatic stakes, the audience becomes increasingly deadened to the growing extravagance of Hollywood special effects. It's gotten so bad that they've introduced 3D all over again, because fifty foot tall fighting robots weren't enough the first time around. I feel frustrated with the directors of modern day blockbusters and often wonder, as I did in Terminator Salvation, why they don't get the hell out of my way and just hand me an Xbox 360 controller. If we're just going to mindlessly blow things up, give me the detonator.
The main difference between your modern action blockbuster and Samurai Rebellion is this: no amount of CGI wizardry can match the intensity and emotion of Isaburo's final battle. While computerized explosions and physics defying kung fu may wow us on the first go, we become dulled to their effect. Human emotion, however, is a ceaseless complex tapestry that no amount of polygons will ever be able to match.
Take, for instance, Isaburo's close friend Tatewaki, the only man that can match his skill with a blade. Time and again, Tatewaki prods Isaburo to continue in his struggle. Does he have Isaburo's best interest in mind or is he playing politics, attempting to concoct a situation he can take advantage of? We can't be sure. There is a moment near the end of the film, when a close up on Tatewaki's face suggests a nearly infinite range of emotions and, at the same time, remains unreadable. It is these moments, when we grapple with the characters, that not only makes cinema worth our time, but enables it to enrich us.
No comments:
Post a Comment