DODES'KA-DEN

Japan, 1970, 140 minutes, Colour.
Zuch Yoshitaka, Kin Sugai, Kazou Kato, Junzaburo Ban,
Directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Dodes'ka-den was the first colour film made by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa is one of the best and most renowned of the Japanese directors. As early as the '40s he made such striking short films as Judo Game. In the '50s he reached a peak with the classics Rashomon, Living, The Seven Samurai. He made a number of Samurai films, with an eye on the American western for a parallel treatment (Throne of Blood based on Macbeth, Yojimbo, Sanjuro and The Hidden Fortress.

The Americans took back some of his themes and transferred them to the West e.g. The Seven Samurai becoming The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo becoming A Fistful of Dollars. He also made the very striking film Red Beard about a Japanese doctor in the 19th. century. This present film follows it, although there was a gap of several years.

In this film Kurosawa observes a group of people in the slums on the outskirts of Japan. Compassionate, optimistic, realistic, he views the people as people and presented them most vividly, interlocking their stories so that we really feel we get to know the people and the atmosphere of this part of Tokyo.

Kurosawa had to wait several years before making his next film, the superb Dersu Uzala, the story of a Russian explorer at the turn of the century and his Siberian guide. One of Kurosawa's masterpieces.

1. The quality of this film? Interest, entertainment? The work of Akira Kurosawa? The decades of his work, his portraits of Japan both present and past? His insight into character? His distinctively Japanese approach and yet his being influenced by western styles? An adaptation of a novel? The story aspects of contemporary Japan - and the choice of characters with the overtones of myth and legend?

2. The importance of the colour photography - the emphasis on unusual colours, the houses and huts, the ground, the sky, paint, realism and fantasies? A surreal as well as realist atmosphere? The background of painting? The contribution of the musical score and its relation to mod and colour?

3. The structure of the film and the audience's entrance into the village especially through Rokuchan and his home, his mother, her prayers and rituals, his being retarded, the drawings of the tram and his imitation of the tram - the return after visiting all the people on the hill to Rokuchan's room? His presence throughout the film? The structure of the screenplay and the interweavinq of so many characters and their stories? The effect of counterpointing these characters and stories? How did the film retain interest in each of the sub-plots? The moving of audience sympathies for so many people with such difficulties? The counterbalance of humour, sentiment, sadness? Did the screenplay inform the audience sufficiently in the way of life of these people?

4. How well drawn were the characters? To what extent were they caricatures? The director declaring that he was sketching characters briefly even to the extent of caricature to make their impression quickly and suggest their background and characteristics rather than present them in great detail? The background of old English humours? The cross-section of people, men and women, old and young, the poor and the poorest, the mad and the sane? The honest and the dishonest? A cross-section of the world? The need to survive? The various types, representing the basic issues of human existence?

5. The values of the people on the hill - right and wrong, life and death, truth. sadness and joy, passion. sin and forgiveness?

6. The intermeshing of the stories of the various characters and what they represented:
i) Shim - the little clerk, his convulsions and their comic tone and their pathos? his patience with his wife? Her shrewish behaviour, a bully, her cigarette, her buying the vegetables and bullying the sellers? His inviting his friends home, the tensions of their being entertained, the slovenly behaviour of his wife? His ferocious defence of his wife after his colleagues criticised her? The love and his own self-consciousness?
ii) The drunken labourers, their work, their wives and their almost being indistinguishable, the wife-swapping pleasantly? The neighbours not knowing who was with whom? The wives and their colourful dresses, meting in the central square, washing? The men and their drinking? The monotony of their lives and their coping with it?
iii) Ryo, the generous and friendly man, the large brood of children, the slatternly wife and her having a different father for each child? Her continued pregnancy? Devotion and a happy household?
iv) Katsuko - the orphan girl, her making of the paper flowers, her incessant work, her aunt and her illness, the ne'er do well uncle and guardian and his wasting time, money? His raping her and the effect on the girl? Her friendship with the delivery boy and the pleasant and innocent friendship? The sudden violence in her knifing the boy? Her unwillingness to admit that her uncle raped her? The boy and his recovery and his devotion to the girl? Her apology?
v) Hei - his brooding over his wife's infidelity, his hunger and thinness? Her visit to him, her confession. her attempts at reconciliation and his unwillingness to forgive her? His hardness of heart?
vi) The beggar and his son living in the old car? The begging of the food? The little boy and his suffering, the length of his final illness? The father and his grandiose dream and the way these were visualised - the house, the fence and the gate, the pool? The joy of the little boy in hearing of these dreams? His pride and unwillingness to get food for his child? The colours suggesting their illness and undernourishment? The frantic father and the boy's death?
vii) The thief, the vegetable seller bullied by the accountant's wife, the thug who gets periodically drunk terrorising the neighbourhood, the gossipping wives around the central fountain and their washing, gossipping?
viii) Tamb - the wise old watchmaker: his unpredictable behaviour and attitudes, taking people's dreams seriously? The way that he stops the man threatening suicide by giving him poison? His handing over the money to the burglar? The return of the police and the interrogation and his saving the burglar?
ix) Rokuchan and his mother, her love for him, their prayer with the monotonous chanting ritual? The room and his drawings of the tram? His pretending to be a tram and the title of the film as his noise for the tram? His running up the hill, people mocking him? His simplicity and his being a norm for judging the attitudes of the various people on the hill?

7. The importance of experiencing a film like this - within a short space of time sharing in the human experience - both comic and tragic?