WOW!! Best Kurosawa film EVER

Selecting the best Kurosawa film would be like choosing the most perfect diamond from dozens of identical stones. All his movies are great, even his lesser known ones. With some of his smaller films, you would think absolutely nothing is happening, but then it hits you, that profound quietness, and you realize that quietness means everything. With his major films, there's always so much more than meets the eye, such magnitude, and all his movies can be watched again and again, each viewing more enjoyable than the last. Yes, I have my own favorite but that's just a personal thing and I offer no film criticism to defend it. What I can say is this, THE BAD SLEEP WELL is truly an amazing film!




Writing about movies is like dancing about architecture

I agree with most everything said in this thread. There are only three directors for me with an unbelievably "long" track record of films in which there are little or no blemishes. This is Kurosawa, Bergman, and Chabrol. I have other directors who have made 5 to 10 films which I like and/or love (usually with a couple of duds I don't like thrown in there), but the three guys I've mentioned have made so many films and of those 10 or more films I've seen of theirs, I have never seen one that I didn't at least like or enjoy. Personally, Kieslowski is my favourite director but even he doesn't have the long filmography of work those 3 directors have, partly because he passed away so soon, but that's a post for another thread. Back to Kurosawa.

Believe it or not, a lot of the great Japanese contemporaries of Kurosawa (including the super-talented Kon Ichikawa) have denigrated Kurosawa's artistic and moral sensibilities as sophomoric (I think one of them said something like Akira thinks of the world like a high school junior). I've always disagreed with that statement. Yes, his films are about simple truths and he doesn't compromise this integrity with layers and layers of intellectual sophistication or even the cynical ironies, contradictions, and paradoxes supposedly more "mature" adults see in the world, ie. the questions and answers being more complex than the way Kurosawa sees them. But that's what I like about Kurosawa, he distills everything down to the purity of the child's vision of right and wrong. Yes, on a practical basis this might not be the best way to handle things but so many adults "forget" these ideals that should ground us in how we do things and treat one another. I really believe this is a conscious choice of Kurosawa's. Just from the high level of technical artistry he uses in his films to get at these simple truths. And as you've guys have expressed, the example of this film alone (The Bad Sleep Well) shows he can handle more sophisticated subjects and themes. Instead of getting at the immorality of Iwabuchi's acts in some vague general social sense, he personalizes it by not only including the families but makes it the central effect of people's immorality. "What goes around will eventually come around". Kurosawa also leaves the finish of this film open-ended so that "right" doesn't triumph over "wrong" in a "practical" sense, making the film less easy to dismiss. "The Bad Sleep Well" is not my favourite Kurosawa movie but I think Ichikawa and other contemporaries of Kurosawa should realize from this film alone that his sophistication or non-sophistication is really a matter of choice, not just some personal artistic or philosophical sophistication that he doesn't have and others do. There are other examples of Kurosawa's deeper understanding of things so I don't see their criticisms as being valid. For example, "Rashomon", "Ran", "Dodes'ka-den", "Derzu Uzala", etc. Kurosawa is a communicator, not an artistic sophist that only wants to show other artists how profound he is. I love him for that.

I agree with u jackRabbit2, the best Kurosawa film is The Bad Sleep Well. Seven Samurai is overrated, but it is nearly as good as The Bad Sleep Well. Yojimbo, Ran and Throne of Blood are then the neariest best. I've seen 13-15 Kurosawa films, everything of 'em are great except Dodeskaden :(

Indeed, i was so impreddes by this film! I didn't even know it before!