Seven Samurai (1954)

In the booklet provided with this splendid Blu-ray release there is a wonderful tribute written by the great American director Sidney Lumet. In it, he points out that nature always plays an important role in Kurosawa's films, and suggests that in a way it completes their characters. I believe that Lumet is right. No other classic Japanese director, aside from perhaps Kenji Mizoguchi, understood and treated nature quite like Kurosawa did.

In Seven Samurai nature is once again a force to be reckoned with. The villagers are poor, weak and disillusioned men who have struggled with it for years. They need someone to help them get rid of the bandits who have been terrorizing their village but all that they could offer is three meals per day. Nature has not been kind to the villagers, and they know it.

Interestingly enough, the samurai who agree to help are also poor, weak and disillusioned men. The way they carry themselves suggests otherwise, but the longer Kurosawa's camera follows them, the easier it is to see that like the villagers they are men who have struggled a lot (in fact, Kikuchiyo, the samurai played by Toshiro Mifune, was born a peasant). Some of these men have been unemployed for years, wandering alone through the countryside, looking for someone to hire them and a place to call home.

Yet even though there are all these poor and disillusioned characters who do not seem particularly optimistic about their future, Seven Samurai is arguably Kurosawa's most inspirational film. The bonds that form between the villagers and the samurai, their willingness to stand united and fight the bandits, as well as their determination to resist nature's strange desire to punish them yet again (the final battle in the film takes place during a torrential rainstorm) are indeed impossible not to admire.

Modern films about heroes could never be as moving and engrossing as Seven Samurai. And there are a number of reasons why. First, because like the samurai in Kurosawa's film, most heroes these days are struggling or unemployed - this is the age of the superheroes. Second, because modern moviegoers do not have the patience to befriend film characters. It takes time to get to know someone and trust him (which is why Seven Samurai runs at 207 minutes), and nowadays everyone is in a rush. Third, because few directors still have the desire and stamina to be inventive and original. Most are cheaters, some rather good but still cheaters, with an endless arsenal of CGI effects.

I envy those of you who are going to experience Kurosawa's Seven Samurai for the first time. I first saw it many years ago at a place where foreign films were rarely screened. Most were also routinely censored. Times are different now and a lot of the films my generation could only dream about seeing are just a mouse-click away - which is why I strongly encourage you to take advantage of Criterion's wonderful Blu-ray release of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. It is a real treasure.