When we speak of the Japanese cinema, Kurosawa' name is the one that gets the first mention. While, Kurosawa rightfully gets the due credit for his highly immense and influential contribution to the world cinema, we have to look at the works of his contemporaries, who were as good as Kurosawa, if not better. This writer has not seen much of the Masaki Kobayashi's work apart from Samurai Rebellion, Harakiri and Kwaidan, while Human Condition, an epic war movie, depicting the insanity and the savagery of war, is on the "wish list".
This writer's first introduction to Masaki Kobayashi was through the 1968 flick "Samurai Rebellion". The only reason this movie was picked up, was because it featured actor Toshiro Mifune in the lead (after his parting with Kurosawa post-Red Beard) whose acting mettle had left me indelibly impressed in the earlier Kurosawa movies. The movie also had Tatsuya Nakadai, in an important cameo. The movie is about an aging Samurai (Mifune) who is asked to have his young son marry the wife of the feudal lord, as she had insulted him, earning herself banishment from the clan. After much opposition from Mifune's wife, the family finally have their son marry the ex-wife of the feudal lord. While the new family adjusts itself with their daughter-in-law, the house of the feudal lord demands that she come back and what follows is battle for family pride, honor, love and sacrifice. While, this writer saw many parallels between the styles of Kurosawa and Kobayashi and the movie nonetheless leaves impressed with the story line, acting, editing and directing. If shown to an unknowing audience many will relate this feature to Kurosawa.
Impressed with Masaki Kobayashi's style of story-telling and directing, left this writer wanting for more. The next movie in the line was, Harakiri (Seppuku) released in1962. It is a brilliant masterpiece, that is miles ahead of any other Samurai film made in that era, even Kurosawa flicks might not be close to it by a mile. The film features another great actor from the sixties era, Tatsuya Nakadai, int he lead role and is perhaps one of the finest tragedies ever depicted on celluloid in the history of cinema. If you just wanted a Samurai story perfectly blended with poetic tragedy, this is the movie. The movie starts with an old and half fed, aged samurai swordsman who comes to the house of a feudal family, requesting to commit "Seppuku" or Harakiri. The people of the house of Iye try to discourage him from committing "Harakiri" by recounting the tale of an earlier "Ronin" who came to their place asking to commit harakiri but instead wanted to extract some money out of the house. A "Ronin" is basically a "Samurai" or a "Bushido" but one who has lost his master due to death, defeat in battle etc. With a loss of a pay-master, a Samurai or a Bushido was considered a "Ronin". Many unscrupulous ex Samurais and Bushidos came to the house of rich people asking to perform "Harakiri". Many households abhorred the idea of someone committing suicide in their premises and usually paid money to the Ronins to go somewhere else to do the act. The officer tells the old man the story of a coward "Ronin" was moving around with nothing but a bamboo made sword and to teach him a lesson they "forced" him to commit harakiri with his own bamboo sword and made him suffer a painful, slow and a horrible death. The aged Ronin is still adamant at committing the act of harakiri and the feudal household heeds his request and they ask him, if he would like any man to act as his second (the samurai who will severe his head when he has cut his entrails) The aged Ronin takes names of three of the members of Iye clan, but as the story unfolds, we come to know that all the second man requested by older samurai are at home, down with some terrible illness, wanting to see or meet none one and that aged Ronin definitely has something up his sleeve.
Harakiri is like an exquisite wine. It takes it own sweet time to go down on you and then it intoxicates and stimulates you with an experience that leaves you satiated at the end. It is tragic tale that hits upon the "established" norms for Samurais and how it was convenient to bend the rules to suit one's own mean ends and that honor was nothing more than a facade for these type of people, to hide their own cowardness, their insensitivities, their false bravado. On the other hand the story deals with tender story of relationship, trust, love and respect. For any person, interested in eclectic, artful, high standard cinema, Harakiri is one of the top options. Harakiri is also a movie that tells a viewer that Akira Kurosawa, though a brilliant director, was not the only director of huge talent and substance to come from Japan and that there were others too, like Masaki Kobayashi.
Kwaidan, is a collection of four ghost stories, another great masterpiece from Kobayashi. The stories all tell the tales of love, betrayal, bravery, trust, faith, loyalty and inner demons. The first story is of a poor Samurai who leaves his loving caring wife and marries the daughter of rich nobleman. Though he has money and wealth, he has no inner happiness and still longs for his wife. He comes back to his house after several years and finds his wife welcoming him lovingly and joyously and he confesses his true love for her and asks for her forgiveness and vows to start a new chapter in their lives together.
The second story is of young woodcutter (Tatsuya Nakadai) and his friend who get caught in a snow storm and take refuge in an abandoned hut. The hut is visited by a ghost woman (Yuki Onno) at night, who kills his friend but spares Nakadai on the promise he will not spit out a word about the incident. Years later, under some strange circumstances, he recounts the story to his wife and finds out a horrifying truth.
The second story is special because it uses surrealist artwork to serve as backdrops for the scenes, almost giving them a fairytale feel.
The third story is of a blind singer, who sings songs of war that took place in ancient times between the two powerful dynasties in Japan. He is called to sing for a noble family every night and one day when he refuses, the ghosts exact a horrifying revenge on him. The segment of the story uses studio sets to beautifully create the aura, the surrounding and the eerie atmosphere essential towards the story telling.
Masaki Kobayashi has not received the attention he deserves and his works are slowly being credited with praise that they rightfully deserve. Kobayashi, like Kurosawa, was a survivor of the WWII and hence his movies have a strong anti-War, anti-Militarist, anti-Authoratarian sentiment in them, in at least in two of the movies, Harakiri and The Human Condition. While, it is too early to say anything on Masaki Kobayashi, as there is a plethora of movies that have yet to be seen by this writer, still three movies mentioned above prove his worth both as a skillful film maker and that he is undoubtedly one of the best directors of the world cinema.
