Ran

I had the privilege of seeing this projected from an original 35mm print from 1985. It looked absolutely beautiful for all of 10 mins until there was a technical difficulty and, after a brief pause, Cinema City resumed playing what I can only assume was a digital restoration instead. A shame not to have seen the full 35mm print but, ultimately, I'm just glad to have had the chance to see this film on the big screen. Monumental in scope, brutal in execution, and almost unbearably tragic. Kurosawa takes the bones of King Lear and rebuilds them into something altogether grander and more nihilistic. Everything here is working at the height of cinematic expression. The compositions are extraordinary, the colour work breathtaking, and the scale of the battles unmatched. It’s all so meticulously staged that it becomes surreal. And yet, for all the spectacle, it’s the stillness that lingers. A lone castle engulfed in smoke. The drifting clouds, indifferent to human tragedy. A broken man wandering through the ruins of his own making. Hidetora’s descent into madness is Shakespearean, yes, but also deeply cinematic: a collapse told through silence, smoke, and scorched earth. Kurosawa, embittered by the folly of man, speaks with the clarity of someone who’s lived long enough to have seen the worst in people play out over and over again. One of the bleakest, most beautiful films ever made.