I write this late in the evening on the 103rd anniversary of Akira Kurosawa's entry into this world, with less than an hour left in the day and no clear sense of where I will end up going with this review. But it seems necessary for me to mark AK's birthday with at least a brief summary of my thoughts on one of the greatest of his many impeccably directed films, High and Low. It's been in my queue for a week now, and I've had a chance to watch it through a couple of times over the last few days, along with the "making of" documentary included on Criterion's sparkling blu-ray and upgraded DVD editions released over the past couple years. There's so much packed into this film, especially such an elevated level of artistry and technical virtuousity on Kurosawa's part (that he generously passes along to his actors and crew by virtue of his unyielding demands upon them) that ideally, I'd probably do best to give it one more close examination to more fully internalize its big ideas and masterful execution before composing my essay on the film. But I'm trying to pick up the pace on this blog, so here goes.
High and Low is a mature work, the expression of an accomplished auteur who was eager to challenge himself after his one-two punch of Yojimbo and Sanjuro in 1961 and '62 respectively. The consecutive samurai films disrupted Kurosawa's custom of alternating between films based in the historical past and the present day that he'd been following throughout the 1950s. Sanjuro, produced quickly in order to capitalize on Yojimbo's lucrative popularity at the box office, came about as close to "coasting" on a formulaic picture as he ever did since hitting his directorial stride in the late 1940s. (His third film, Sanshiro Sugata Part Two, is the only other sequel he ever made.) But with those successes behind him, AK's ambition to press forward with cinematic innovation and make a big statement about what he saw happening in contemporary Japan led him to one of his most unusual literary adapatations: an American crime novel, King's Ransom, that is reportedly pretty mediocre as literature, but provided the germ of an idea that Kurosawa used as the basis for a fascinating examination of the materialistic rot he saw settling in at the heart of Japanese culture.
The crucial idea that Kurosawa extracted from the story is that a rich businessman could be successfully blackmailed to pay a ransom for the sake of a child who was not his own, if the circumstances were just right. Apparently, kidnappings for profit were a hot topic in Japan in the early 1960s, perhaps as disturbing to the popular consciousness back then as premeditated gun violence directed at random strangers is to American society nowadays. Quite a few elements of the novel were changed in High and Low, most notably a more downbeat ending and a broader indictment of the moral vacuum that afflicted the Japanese economic system at both ends of the spectrum: neither the rich nor the poor are portrayed with much sympathy, though the protagonist, Kingo Gondo is at least given the opportunity to experience a degree of personal transformation as the fortune and career he'd dedicated his life to building are stripped away by a cruel twist of fate.
Gondo's arc through High and Low takes him on a turbulent journey that in its way embodies one interpretation of the film's title. He begins as a highly competitive, affluent executive who's on the verge of maneuvering himself into a controlling interest in the company he's worked at for a couple of decades, climbing his way relentlessly up the ladder. Having leveraged all his property and maxed out his credit in order to buy up the stock necessary to complete his takeover, the plan is shattered in a moment when Gondo learns over the phone that his son has been snatched off the street by a remorseless fiend who will kill him unless his demand for 30 million yen is satisfied ASAP. The cruel twist comes in when it turns out that it wasn't the son who was kidnapped, but his friend, the child of Gondo's chauffeur who of course has no ability to make such a payment. From the moment this realization kicks in, that Gondo has it within his power to save the boy's life, but only at the expense of his own material and social advantages, we're ushered into a state of psychological tension that builds into torment of the sort that's too big to be merely limited to one flawed and finite human mind. High and Low informs us that, despite the suspicious wariness and alienation that exists in a densely populated, highly transient modern society, we remain more closely connected, for better or for worse, to each other than surface appearances would indicate.
Kurosawa's initial focus starts with the ethical wrestling that takes place through the night of the initial kidnapping (an incredible opening sequence that locks us for nearly 45 minutes in the spacious but psychologically claustrophobic confines of Gondo's hilltop mansion, overlooking the gritty industrial port of Yokohama.) Gondo is at first very stubborn and self-centered in his concern, but his wife's subtle chastening and the chauffeur's piteous pleading shake his resolve just enough to inject a shadow of doubt in his plans. The police have to remain neutral - it's not within their power to require anyone to pay a ransom, of course, but Gondo can help them catch the kidnapper by following their advice and playing along with the extortionist's demands. The dramatic power of these scenes is conveyed through skillful performances - particularly Toshiro Mifune's exceptional balance of seething fury capped by a reticence to show too much emotion to all the intruders observing his anguish - and magnificently precise visual compositions that are a sheer pleasure to behold. The choreography of where the characters stand and place themselves on screen, how they move around at crucial moments, how the cameras are positioned and the way in which the telephoto lenses record it all is, all throughout the film, what stands out the most as I think about High and Low at this dark hour of the night.
As the night of the kidnapping turns to dawn and we're finally given the relief of leaving Gondo's domicile, as imperious and alienating in its own way as any fallen Rashomon gate, Spider-web castle, or hidden fortress, Kurosawa shows us that, far from being an exceptionally tormented soul, Gondo's malady is just the other side of the coin of suffering that his rise from common artisan status to wealth and prosperity seems to have purchased among the lower depths of Yokohama's working class. Having arrived at a pinnacle of success, with the attributes of modern technology like air conditioning, tinted windows and all the latest household appliances at his service, Gondo discovers just how fragile and tenuous all that accomplishment really is. With the speed of a bullet train, the efficiency of a diabolically clever trap and the stomach-churning sense of helplessness that comes with succumbing to such schemes at the cost of one's ruination, we also see how the surface trappings of a taut, well-constructed suspense plot can lead us deeper than we might have expected, to ruminate on the condition of our own lives and souls.
But that pivotal decision that Gondo makes, to go ahead and submit to the kidnapper's demands for the sake of his servant's boy, turns out to be a key to the rich man's redemption, even though he never gives us the satisfaction of finding a state of grace or serenity as a result of that decision. Gondo knows that he did the right thing, but he's still a nervous, confused wreck about it, and the financial ruin that he experiences has real, lasting consequences. Even his final encounter with the embittered stranger who took it upon himself to make his life a living hell fails to provide any kind of a rational resolution. That's a smart move on Kurosawa's part, as we already have enough moralistic stories that seek to provide a soothing, sensible explanation to the senseless tragedies and deliberate cruelties that so many have to suffer. The bleakness of High and Low's conclusion, when the steel screen crashes down in Gondo's face as the response of the cosmos to his quest for an answer, may not offer much in the way of satisfaction, but it respectfully serves the audience well as each of us have our own sojourn to make through this world, finding a middle path between an infuriating, resentment-inducing heaven and an excruciating, cruelty-inflicting hell.
Next: The Leopard