SANSHÔ THE BAILIFF (Sanshô dayû) A
Japan (125 mi) 1954
d: Kenji Mizoguchi
The origin of this
legend of Sansho Dayu, the Bailiff, goes back to medieval times when Japan had
not yet emerged from the Dark Ages and mankind had yet to awaken as human beings.
It has been told by the people for centuries and is treasured today as one of
the epic folk tales of our history.
—opening title sequence
A magnificent film, a monumental work of Shakespearean
depth, poetic, epic, with unbearably poignant, haunting contrasts at play
throughout the entire film, where striking images of grotesque evil and
violence are followed almost immediately by serene beauty and peace, revealing
a wonderful sense of time and off-camera space, one of the more emotionally
wrenching experiences one could ever see.
So much of the film is pure feeling, with visual and aural motifs, the
everpresent sound of the flute represents the feeling of the father, a song of
anguish represents the presence of the absent mother, while the ballad of Narayama,
the subject of Imamura’s 1983 Cannes Palme D’Or winner, is a particularly
haunting portrait of death, with skulls and bones, the sounds of carrion birds,
and the enormous wooden gates that swing open and closed leading to the
graveyard from which the two children make their escape, camera by Kazuo
Miyagawa, music by Fumio Hayasaka.
Set in 11th century Japan, the story reveals a title-bearing
noble family torn apart by political upheavals.
The father, who represents the conscience of the family, is a governor exiled
by political enemies for refusing to send starving peasant farmers into battle
under the military service of the Prime Minister, as every man is needed in the
fields, while the mother, the emotional center, is sold into prostitution while
the children are sold into slavery. From
this utter devastation, the mother and children struggle not only to survive,
but to maintain the father’s mission, to put into action his powerful sense of
humanity, where the self-sacrificing women are portrayed as the redeemers of
men. Of interest, the title of the film
bears the name of the villain, the ruthless overseer of the slave camp,
revealing the director’s tragic vision of virtue tortured, altered, emerging only
partially triumphant, suggesting the past is never really past. In the end, flutes play in an orchestra, the
camera follows an isolated cove where the beachcomber cares for seaweed in
silent, meticulous motion. There is a
perfect harmony in the endless beauty of the ocean, a final image of
affirmation, transcendence, eternity, a small piece of serene harmony in a
violent world of disturbance and turmoil.
Known for its fluid camera movement and endlessly beautiful
long shots, the film is an essential work and one of the greatest Japanese films
ever made, where New Yorker movie
critic Anthony Lane acknowledges “I have seen Sansho only once, a decade ago, emerging from the cinema a broken
man but calm in my conviction that I had never seen anything better; I have not
dared watch it again, reluctant to ruin the spell, but also because the human
heart was not designed to weather such an ordeal.” Winner of the Silver Lion Award at Venice for
the third consecutive year, this movie is a special favorite of Terrence
Malick, who once adapted it for the stage.
A harrowing work, essentially a heartbreaking Medieval fable with modern
political and psychological undertones, it is the picture of a horribly
difficult life making its way through an unforgiving world littered with
terrible cruelty and human suffering.
With a focus on interior strength, as proclaimed by the father, “Without
compassion, a man is no longer human,” this is nothing less than a morality
play with sublime camera movements and visually lyrical imagery following each
character’s personal journey for family redemption that mirrors Mizoguchi’s own
experience, where at age 13 his father sold his sister into prostitution. What a saga to regain the family honor.
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