Following the worldwide success of Kwaidan (a Jury Prize at Cannes, an Academy Award nomination, strong returns at the box office), the choice of Masaki Kobayashi to make Samurai Rebellion his next film provokes my curiosity. Kwaidan was a sumptuous, vibrant colorful exploration of old Japanese ghost stories, four distinct episodes that showed an entirely new side of Kobayashi's exceptional creative vision. According to the standard movie industry formula, he might have been expected to provide a little bit more of the same, with just enough difference to keep things interesting. But instead, he offered up what amounts to an austere, black and white companion piece to his 1962 masterpiece Harakiri, implying that he still had some unfinished business in his examination of the ethos of the Tokugawa shogunate, the feudal system that governed Japan between 1603 and 1868, and still loomed large over the culture and temperament of that nation a hundred years after it was overthrown. Kobayashi's indifference to taking a more commercial approach to his directorial career provides its own commentary on how he set his priorities, as an artist and a human being, and likewise informs the decisions that we often see his protagonists make when they approach those crucial moments of truth in the course of his narratives.
In Samurai Rebellion, the plot unfolds in layers and at a pace that roughly approximates the gradual revelations of Harakiri. We first learn of some unfortunate incidents that have violated the decorum of the strict codes of conduct emblematic of the Tokugawa era: unquestioning submission to the rulers, an assumption of self-sacrifice even to the point of abnegation or suicide if that's what one's duty calls for, and fastidious attention to details, including the posture and facial expressions one assumes in the presence of superiors, as well as countless other guidelines passed down by law, tradition and the sheer weight of disapprobation by the authorities. On the surface, the misdeeds are shameful and embarrassing. In Harakiri, it's shameless begging by ronin threatening to kill themselves in the hopes that their desperation will nudge wealthy households to indulge them with alms. In Samurai Rebellion, it's the disgrace of a young woman who dared to verbally berate and physically assault the lord of the clan himself - an unthinkable outrage and an affront to decency. But as the story proceeds and we peer deeper into the miasma of corruption and hypocrisy that have infected the authoritarian power structure, contemporary audiences are won over by the very human and understandable plight of ordinary people whose lives are caught up in the gears of a system that shows itself to be quite fiendishly rigid and blind to its own shortcomings.
This tendency of Kobayashi's, to focus on and expose the kind of situations where forced adherence to the power of law and custom results in the destruction of human lives for those who defy expectations, and spiritual atrophy for those who willingly surrender for the sake of placid conformity, gives Samurai Rebellion its underlying power. Kobayashi adroitly leads his audience to engage with the plight of its central characters - Isaburo, the skilled swordsman whose talents are rarely needed in this placid age of shogunate domination; Ichi, the intelligent and beautiful young woman who finds herself bartered back and forth between men at the whim of a disgusting "hairy worm" of a man who just happens to hold unrivaled authority over her life; Yogoro, the dutiful son of his father who strives to balance filial responsibilities with his own emotional needs; and even Tatewaki, the border guard who watches all these events at a distance, recognizing the peril that they present to his friend Isaburo and the young couple (Ichi and Yogoro) who have found love against all odds in this maddening predicament. Each character provides a clear point of entry into a dilemma that many of us can easily identify with, based on times and circumstances in our own lives when pressure tactics of one sort or another required us to make fateful decisions that would have long-lasting implications on the rest of our lives.
The plot contrivances of Samurai Rebellion, as essential as they are, represent only the opening volley to what is, by any measure, an exceptional cinematic experience. Kobayashi enlisted top level talent in all aspects of the creation of this film. The soundtrack music from Toru Takemitsu is outstanding, eerily percussive and atmospheric, hitting all the right notes, even when they are utterly unexpected in a given scene. His cast includes notable actors like Toshiro Mifune, in a late career role that allows his previous accomplishments on screen to feed into the pathos of a man who has sacrificed more than he ought to have simply for the sake of "getting along," and Tatsuya Nakadai, who humbly takes on a relatively minor supporting role at a time when he was a highly in-demand leading man. I can't help but wonder if his long-term relationship with Kobayashi, who helped him get established by casting him prominently in Black River, persuaded him to take this role. It's a good one, in any case, leading to the practically inevitable showdown between him and Mifune that was teased, but never delivered, in Kihachi Okamoto's Sword of Doom, released the previous year. I also need to emphasize the strength demonstrated by Yoko Tsukasa in her portrayal of Lady Ichi, who is in a real sense the pivot point around whom all the action swirls. Without Ichi's firm resolution and bold unwillingness to compromise, none of the heroic gestures that we applaud from Isaburo, Tatewaki or her husband Yogoro would have been possible. It is indeed quite strange for me to add the "Feminism" tag to what purports to be a classic samurai flick (a genre that tends to celebrate manliness to the extreme, for all the pros and cons implied in that statement), but that is indeed what I think makes this film such a satisfying complement to Harakiri. While it may lack the quasi-traumatic psychological jolts delivered by that earlier film (seppuku is mentioned, but never actually depicted in Samurai Rebellion), there is plenty enough harrowing material to process here. The horror of either having one's wife torn away due to an imperial edict, or being the woman passed back and forth as a bargaining chip, separated from one's child, and weighed down with a life-or-death decision not only for ones self but also for your most dearly beloved... Dilemmas don't get any worse than that, when you add it all up.
Still, it's apparent to me that Samurai Rebellion is likely to remain on the B-List of Kobayashi's works in the estimation of many, and I think that's quite unfortunate, since I would rank it as highly as anything else he made that I've seen. It's partly due to the packaging, since Criterion has only released it on DVD, available separately for those who might want to seek it out, but most commonly regarded as one of four films contained in the Rebel Samurai: Sixties Swordplay Classics box that they released ten years ago back in 2005. It's a cool set, but probably overlooked by some who might otherwise enjoy it because it's too old and too plain as far as special features are concerned. And since it doesn't come across as quite so original and groundbreaking as Harakiri's initial onslaught to the conventions of the classic samurai saga, there will be those who consider Samurai Rebellion a bit of a retreat or a rehash. My view is that Kobayashi, a profoundly thoughtful humanist, pacifist and nonconformist, made this film specifically to bring the needs and concerns of women to the forefront in his work, and to that end, he succeeded brilliantly.
Next: Warrendale