Drunken Angel
1948
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa & Keinosuke Uegusa
Cinematography by Takeo Ito
Edited by Akikazu Kono
Music by Fumio Hayasaka
Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel may not be the first film that most people mention when referring to Kurosawa's illustrious career, but for me, it's my favourite Kurosawa film. I tend to prefer (and relate) to more intimate, simple (or rather deceptively simple) films that deal with supposedly trivial human issues. Individuals as opposed to epic set pieces involving countries far and wide, war and political intrigue ... no thanks. One thing that can be said about Kurosawa's films is that, no matter the plot itself, they always deal with the characters themselves and not necessarily with the events going on on-screen.
Drunken Angel is a straight-forward film that is existential at times (being an existentialist - completely out of favour with the enlightened majority nowadays I'm told - I support this aspect), but also frighteningly honest at times (not to say that existentialism isn't honest - far from it, but Kurosawa takes a side and makes a firm decision to support one side over the other, wherein the pure existentialist would parlay on behalf of both sides ... or neither).
The film is of course strewn together with bits of symbolism and doomed fates intertwining and mingling between addictions and addictive personalities. The diseased pool omnipresent and sparkling with carrier mosquitoes while the children play near it unaware and joyfully uncaring, the drunken angel himself (Shimura) stuck amidst the cesspool forming an odd relationship with a young gangster (Mifune), perhaps seeing something of himself in that proud reckless face. Shimura is the anti-hero (one of Kurosawa's many anti-heroes), a flawed Samaritan who perhaps has found kindness in his doomed alcoholic state and seeks to form a fruitless one-sided friendship with another also doomed by the social criminal ladder of alcoholic proportions.
This is Kurosawa depicting humanity in its raw quivering form, but doing so in an understated, tasteful way and not yieldingly or cowardly (as many "controversial" directors often attempt to do).
The film ends with Shimura, the doctor, accepting what all doctors must accept, that he is only life's tool, he can only delay the inevitable. He must accept losing control, losing himself (or what he saw of himself in Mifune), to a force as powerful as addiction and as uncompromising. I wouldn't wish this realization on anyone and yet Kurosawa depicts it not in a sappy depressing way, but on realistic terms. It is what it is, there is no need for sorrow or regret, only acceptance and an infusion of meaning into the supposedly trivial things. For Shimura, perhaps its an alcoholic rejuvenation or perhaps it will be his salvation from that prison. Kurosawa, ever the realist, leaves that puzzle unfinished as it should be and Shimura and Mifune's fates end up being neither sad nor joyous, but simply meant to be.
Drunken Angel is a straight-forward film that is existential at times (being an existentialist - completely out of favour with the enlightened majority nowadays I'm told - I support this aspect), but also frighteningly honest at times (not to say that existentialism isn't honest - far from it, but Kurosawa takes a side and makes a firm decision to support one side over the other, wherein the pure existentialist would parlay on behalf of both sides ... or neither).
The film is of course strewn together with bits of symbolism and doomed fates intertwining and mingling between addictions and addictive personalities. The diseased pool omnipresent and sparkling with carrier mosquitoes while the children play near it unaware and joyfully uncaring, the drunken angel himself (Shimura) stuck amidst the cesspool forming an odd relationship with a young gangster (Mifune), perhaps seeing something of himself in that proud reckless face. Shimura is the anti-hero (one of Kurosawa's many anti-heroes), a flawed Samaritan who perhaps has found kindness in his doomed alcoholic state and seeks to form a fruitless one-sided friendship with another also doomed by the social criminal ladder of alcoholic proportions.
This is Kurosawa depicting humanity in its raw quivering form, but doing so in an understated, tasteful way and not yieldingly or cowardly (as many "controversial" directors often attempt to do).
The film ends with Shimura, the doctor, accepting what all doctors must accept, that he is only life's tool, he can only delay the inevitable. He must accept losing control, losing himself (or what he saw of himself in Mifune), to a force as powerful as addiction and as uncompromising. I wouldn't wish this realization on anyone and yet Kurosawa depicts it not in a sappy depressing way, but on realistic terms. It is what it is, there is no need for sorrow or regret, only acceptance and an infusion of meaning into the supposedly trivial things. For Shimura, perhaps its an alcoholic rejuvenation or perhaps it will be his salvation from that prison. Kurosawa, ever the realist, leaves that puzzle unfinished as it should be and Shimura and Mifune's fates end up being neither sad nor joyous, but simply meant to be.
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