Seven Samurai

[StevePulaski]

Seven Samurai (1954)
Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

The fearless samurais of Seven Samurai.

Rating: ★★★★

Countless reviews, analyses, essays, thinkpieces, and even full-length novels concerning the sheer genius and magnitude of Akira Kurosawa's masterful Seven Samurai have been published, so a very lengthy analysis from me is unnecessary, given there's probably very little to say that hasn't already been said (the inherent struggle of reviewing beloved classics). However, in the midst of this, the obvious elements of the film ostensibly get lost in the shuffle, due to the focus being placed on analyzing themes and character motivations in the film (a somewhat essential, but sometimes distracting element to film criticism, leaving important focal points like shooting techniques, cinematography, and pacing in the dust). I'm prepared to extract Seven Samurai's more surface attributes, in addition to affirming why this film has etched itself into being one of the greatest films ever made.

For a film over three hours in length, the plot is incredibly simple, as it concerns a group of Japanese farmers are experiencing an intrusion of bandits during the Sengoku period in Japan. The tight-knit group of villagers are finding their peaceful and harmless way of life the target of violence and theft of their minimal goods, such as rice, beans, and sake. Powerless, and largely pacifist, the farmers have little way to defend themselves, so they call on seven samurais to defend them in their time of need. Led by Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune), though his samurai roots fraudulent, the samurais and farmers unleash a battle for the ages against the ruthless bandits.

Kurosawa was given unprecedented creative freedom by the studio Toho, which was about to strike gold with Ishirō Honda's Godzilla months later for the same reason, so Seven Samurai feels uncommonly original and fresh; a product of Kurosawa's rather than passive studio heads. Like artists before him who obtained the rare luxury, Kurosawa took this creativity and ran with it, first and foremost, establishing newfound storytelling elements that would become something of a standard in films to come. Plot elements now viewed as cliches such as the inferior team calling on the superior team for help in time of need, a star-crossed romance in the midst of wartime and violence, and finding sympathy and love for the underdog were all debatably pioneered in Seven Samurai.

On a technical level, Seven Samurai is a marvel for a plethora of reasons, as well. It was one of the first films to use telephoto lenses, shooting grandscale battle scenes from multiple different angles, maintaining continuity and giving the film fluidity. Kurosawa would set up three different cameras, each capturing different, often unique, angles of the battle scenes late in the film, in order to plunge the viewer in the center of the action rather than making them feel like they were lost in a cacophony of madness. This choice undoubtedly hails from Kurosawa's view of the traditional American Western, which he claims had a certain "grammar" and poetry to their storytelling and their visuals.

With that, Kurosawa creates an immaculately detailed picture, filled with characters that take time to unfold and showcase their complexities as humans. There's Rikichi (Yoshio Tsuchiya), a villager with a short fuse and a big plan to give anybody who messes with his villagers hell, Manzō (Kamatari Fujiwara), a man who's prime concern in the midst of all this violence is his beloved daughter Shino (Keiko Tsushima), who meets and falls in love with Katsushirō (Isao Kimura), one of the seven samurais. My personal favorite character was Yohei (Bokuzen Hidari), a feeble and sensitive elder of his village, shocked and dismayed at what it has become in the wake of violence. His facial expressions speak volumes as loud as the wails of bandits far and wide, and his sensitivity provides the film with some of the sadder elements of the film. Kurosawa paints these characters in a way that's humanizing and the liberal runtime allows for us to get to know these characters and their weaknesses rather than looking at them as faceless characters plunged into a long, rowdy setpiece.

Ultimately, it's the richness and the overall density of what is uniformly a simple, straight-forward picture that makes Akira Kurosawa's sprawling, expansive epic so memorable. He combines heartbreaking drama, serious suspense, horror, light-hearted comedy, and credible pathos over the course of three and a half-hours and rarely slows down in his desire to create a film that's immersive and groundbreaking. All of this is encapsulated in a film that has a plot that virtually anyone can follow and a character most can relate to or sympathize with. Seven Samurai is powerful cinema in the first degree; a film more than fifty years old that feels distinctly modern, making a statement and leaving us with a lot of content and insights to chew on, before, like a cowboy in a traditional Western, riding off and letting us soak in what we just saw as if we're perched directly under the hot, debilitating sun.

Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Isao Kimura, Bokuzen Hidari Daisuke Katō, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Inaba, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara, Kokuten Kōdō, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Yukiko Shimazaki, and Eijirō Tōno. Directed by: Akira Kurosawa.