MovieChat Forums > Donzoko (1957) Discussion > I HATE this movie! That's what makes it ...

I HATE this movie! That's what makes it great! (?)

posted 16 years ago by cpt761
6 replies | jump to latest

I would like to know, if I got the story right and if there is anyone else who feels this way about the movie.
First of all: I don't know the play the film is based on.

----------- WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! PLEASE SEE IT FIRST! -------------

My "short" summary:
In the beginning there are those people who are miserable. But other people who are less miserable (or at least have a job )and the viewer like them because they are funny and we don't know their stories/don't really care about them.

Then, there is this old man who listens to their stories and sympathizes. He gives everyone a spark of hope and they become more and more real. He helps them to get their lifes together again - or at least that's the promise to the audience.

Just when the major conflict (the thief and the sister of the landlady) seems solved, everything falls apart and our "hero" just disappears.

In the end everything seems just like in the beginning (at least from the outside)- only that we now have an impression of who those people are, what happened to them and most important: who is missing.

Why I HATE it (everytime i watch it ;-) ):
It makes me feel miserable. Those of the characters who got their hopes up have been betrayed. And so has the viewer. The movie intentionally takes the hope and the sympathy for the characters and turns it against the viewer.
Don't get me wrong - it still/because of that is a great movie.

Most movies/stories that end on a "down beat" at least provide some reason for hope. After watching it the second time i believe that's what the suicide is supposed to be.
Am I making any sense??? (And i don't mean my pitiful english....)

[–] torontodog 16 years ago

Yeah I felt similar about it. I hated almost everybody in the story. The thief couldn't avoid being tricked by the evil wife. His girlfriend was so stupid that she would rather stay with those creeps than go with the man who loves her. Nobody would help anybody, except the old guy, and they all thought he was a liar.

I just wonder if these people were all poor because they were such jerks or if being poor and wretched made them into jerks.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] KasparM 13 years ago

Because the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] mnoe 13 years ago

his intention was to show himself as a most favourable, enlightened wise old man and not up to the task in the least. A poser. Kinda creepy even.

I think you are reading the opposite of what Kurosawa intended into the character.

Even if he is not a "real" pilgrim, but someone (it is implied a couple of times) who is on the run from somewhere/something, the acts of compassion and the kindness he shows to his "fellow sufferers" (humankind) are genuine.

He also does not "pose" as a "good" person, but says more than once that he is no different from anyone else. One time he mentions that he is "a rock on a riverbank" and says that the water has just worn him smooth. So he is just like the rest of us, but time and an ordinary life of suffering have made him gentle rather than rough.

Obviously not everyone becomes "smooth" with maturity, but can you honestly not think of someone who is like this? (Get out more!)

He gives genuine relief to the dying woman, for one example among several, even while acknowledging to doubting observers and kibitzers that what he is telling her are lies. (There is a recurring theme throughout the entire film of the comfort of lies in the lives of the hopeless.)

So he doesn't stay behind to minister to the whole group until they overcome their circumstances. Could any one person "save" this group? He is not claiming to be the Buddha.

What he does offer is a temporary relief of suffering. When you understand that life itself and everything in it is temporary, you can understand that this is a gift of the highest order. Maybe we are meant to think of the others he will meet on the road or in the wider world as being in equal need of meeting a person with compassion.

last 2 dvds: The Set-Up (1949) & If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010)

[–] 13 years ago

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