Red Beard

This is my sixth Kurosawa, and ever since I watched Ikiru, I thought that this would be Kurosawa's peak. No other film he made would top that feat of emotion and human connection. Then I saw Red Beard for the first time in theaters. Red Beard brings almost everything I look for in a Kurosawa. You get the emotion and the exploration of death you see within Ikiru. you get the suspense and thrill from High and Low. The change in humans and how they escape their selfishness and doubt, like in Seven Samurai. You get the environment and the beauty from RAN. All of this and more packed into a 3 hour timeframe. Red Beard was also the last Kurosawa film that used Toshiro Mifune, and this part suits him a lot better than his younger, more careless roles. this was also the last film we would see from Kurosawa with no color. For a sendoff of almost 15 years of work together, they were really putting their all into this final work before color took over. Kurosawa is best at perfecting the simple. his shots barely move out of line, the story isn't complicated, etc.. This would usually turn into a critique because by the end, it feels like you've seen this before and are missing some sort of flair (like in RAN or High and Low). But the way they execute this makes it feel like it needs to be exactly how it is. I also feel this way with Yang's A Brighter Summer Day, with all 4 hours being somewhat simple, having 0 excess content, and still somehow so compelling. In Red Beard, it seems that Kurosawa gets across the path of the human spirit here, unlike in any other film. Ikiru was my favorite Kurosawa before this, and this is because it seems to encapsulate all that Ikiru goes for basically within the first half. There's a scene where you see a father in his last moments with the background darkened. you learn about his life, and right before it switches to him, you realize his connection to another character within the story. This moment is one of the only moments with such loud music. This scene gave me chills like no other Kurosawa, along with part being only a small point of why it's so great. The 4k restoration of this is breathtaking. the shots look absolutely unreal, like they live on an island floating in space. the music, unlike in Kurosawa's other work, is surprisingly absent most of the time. The shots are beautiful. Scenery and different weather feel like the first time you see them. Shadows are used so effectively, unlike any other Kurosawa. Music is used so rarely that when it is, it pushes what emotions it wants you to feel to the front of your mind. The APU Trilogy is also like this, but I feel that it's done a lot better here. Kurosawa does so much better in color, and for his last film in B&W, he achieved everything he could do in B&W in the most perfect way possible. When Kurosawa shoots in color, it forces him into a direction that takes a lot of the stuff that would naturally happen in B&W out of the experience in color. Going into the theater, I thought that this was going to be fine, but I had high hopes, and I'm so glad it paid off. This deserves so much more attention than Ikiru; this is the one Kurosawa that I really think touched my soul. when the ending screen came I couldn't help but smile at how complete it was, letting the song play until its last note. what a masterpiece.