High and Low

I think it’s pretty evident that Kurosawa has a reputation for being one of if not the greatest director to ever touch earth, I mean I think his last name is synonyms to “master” so he’s got that going for him. It’s a very very well deserved reputation in my humble opinion where his whole filmography has extreme highs they exceed the lows pretty much, now within reason I think he’s got 5 films that are floating around that number 1 spot but I do believe high and low is the greatest film the man’s done, making a contemporary crime drama as if he’d never done anything else in his entire life! True masters of their craft are not restricted by genre or expectations. Toshiro Mifune character is a capitalist success story that climbs the ranks from the bottom and he knows what it’s like not too have money which makes his grasp of it all the harder to loosen. Not only is the decision he has to make a tough one, how much is he willing to give up for somebody else’s child but he’s not only losing his money if he pays the ransom, he’s also losing his identity & that of a important man, the kind you can tell he’s scratched and clawed for and also he feels powerless in this situation so it becomes almost like a morality play in which your happily stuck in one room for about an hour cause you don’t wanna leave, it’s extremely riveting to watch & this is all down to the screenplay, it’s fast paced and your introduced to this character you’ve never met before but you quickly get a sense of Kingo and how he has a grip on his own life but see all the control get stripped away. It’s a pretty beautiful introduction to a character that both takes its time slowly introducing things and giving you new things to consider. Another thing to mention is how it’s blocked out in this dark confined space almost like a proxy for how the characters are feeling in the moment, trapped suddenly & then Kurosawa creates these visually odd images of how he arranges each person on screen, you’ll often find the character who’s talking maybe in the background while a less relevant character is in the frame and this is just the genius of the camera, it’s forcing you to search the frame for a certain person, it’s nothing but engaging. I’m a massive fan of movie titles & what they mean to the movie, this one is not a bad one at all. Kingo is living on a hill & the kidnapper is calling from down below, it’s a very unsubtle but expeditious allegory for this battle between classes that permeates the rest of the film. Now on the face of it it’s a rich man must choose between his offspring & his wealth like not the most interesting or original set up but the sheer brilliance is in its near 2hrs and 30 min runtime it’s shifts gears to become a completely different film TWICE by developing the plot organically and not throwing unexpected twists. The film then settles in to a be a police procedural pretty much for the rest of the film and now what’s funny about this is taking the opening hour which is about Kingos dilemma of deciding between a child or his money, the rest of the film actually ends up being about saving his money, it’s quite a funny subversion that the more I think about it the more I think it’s brilliant. The whole procedural drama bits are nothing but interesting, suspenseful, it’s less of a who done it and more of a what’s it done and all the fat on usual procedural dramas has just been trimmed away here. It suddenly then becomes this very sexy 60s cat & mouse game in which the kidnapper strolls through the town in those big reflective sunglasses, they dehumanise him, give him this other worldly look and like those are his mirrors of what we’d see today of a character having an identity crisis, he’s a reactionary person who defines himself by other people’s choices, of society’s mainly and becomes a walking consequence pretty much. Then the final scene is brilliant, first time you hear the kidnapper speak & you get that impression that like many susceptible young criminals & terrorist inspired by politics he seems very intelligent BUT ultimately insane. Everything about this film comes together to provide a satisfying whole as a crime drama or as a look at the world and a fantastic piece of cinematic clarity! Great stuff. The last thing I want to mention and I’m done gushing about this film but when the police find the location of the junkies, they knew from earlier clues which has a view of Mount Fuji. As they followed Shinji to that location the camera lingers for just a moment on Mount Fuji in the distance before continuing on, little moments like that I think are part of why Kurosawa is such a great director, indulging in every bit of inspiration no matter how small. BRAVO