Review of Ran (1985) by Paul Z — 08 Aug 2008

No matter how much I rave about the 1970s being the heart of change for the better for the movies and how the bar was set even higher for the production values and creative eye of cinema, it was in 1985 when Akira Kurosawa, not at all weather-beaten at age 75 with Ran, his 28th film, forcibly molded the standards of cinematic approach, which he'd already done many times through his career before that time. In Ran, he emboldens colors, ambient sound, and the reality of violence, and when the gloomy music score plays, the ambient sound disappears and the music becomes the hum of the action.

The film, indeed inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear, features acting ripe with what appears to be detaching Shakespearean countenance, overacting, which to many can thus deflate the potential effect of Kurosawa's vision. However, the choice for Tatsuya Nakadai, who plays Great Lord Hidetora, and Mieko Harada, who plays the vindictive Lady Kaede, to use such old-fashioned acting techniques is not based on Shakespearean training but the influence of classical Japanese musical drama theater, exemplified in the heavy, ghost-like makeup worn by Nakadai, which resembles the emotive masks worn by traditional Noh theater performers, along with his body language, long periods of static motion and silence, followed by an abrupt, sometimes violent, change in stance. Being a very concentratedly cultural adaptation, Ran uses these dramatized aspects of the two characters to emphasize their ruthless, passionate, and single-minded natures.

The story itself, which is said to be a blend of King Lear and the legends of Mori Motonari, a 16th century daimyo, neither of which I have read, very tightly and carefully unravels and unfolds very present, glaring moral insights.