A segment of a rather brief existence - approximately 70-80 years - inevitably ends. But Akira Kurosawa started from the wrong end. The director’s two best films, Drunken Angel and Live, filmed in the middle of the last century, were more about death than about life. The August Rhapsody, the penultimate film of Kurosawa, shot in 1992, is the anthem of life in its most vivid and correct manifestation.
The Drunken Angel (1948)
After the Second World War, the former successful doctor eke out a miserable existence, exacerbating his already hopeless situation by constantly drowning out the alcohol prescribed for patients. His human qualities are revealed in a touching concern for a gangster, a young and handsome guy who is slowly but inevitably dying of tuberculosis.
The tragedy of the two fates woven together in post-war Japan tells the audience about the cruelty of the criminal world, about the lost understanding of the honor of the yakuza, about fear, as well as about simple human kindness, love and genuine courage before death. There are many paintings worthy of the epithet "best film", but "Drunk Angel" - can not fight for this right. It can’t be just for one reason - it’s out of competition.
"Live" (1952)
Another film that could become a hymn to the unprecedented courage of the last days of extinction is "Live." Upon learning that there is very little left, the old man decides that, in general, he lived a life in vain. Thoughts come to his mind to leave something to this world. He intends to perpetuate the memory of himself in the playground, building it on the site of a deserted wasteland.
Kurosawa raises the question: the hero will have to change a lot in himself in order to achieve the goal. Indeed, otherwise a weak dying elderly man with a meek character will not be able to break the inertness and arrogance of bureaucratic structures that have stood in his way. Having made construction a matter of recent days, the old man stubbornly collects the necessary signatures, seals and resolutions. He will no longer be stopped either by curses from his superiors, or by the grin of his colleagues, or by the threat of gangs. And how could it be otherwise, if eternity lies ahead.
"August Rhapsody" (1991)
After dozens of years and other wonderful films, Kurosawa makes films about life. The interweaving of simple joys and great sadness spans a period of 45 years (by a strange coincidence, only a little less has passed since the filming of the film "Live"). Despite the fact that in the courtyard of 1991, an elderly woman living with her grandchildren in a modest house near the city of Nagasaki, can not forget the events of World War II, which forever changed the world. Then the American bomb led to the death of many, including her husband. Horrible memories haunt her all her life, sometimes causing seizures of inappropriate behavior.
Akira Kurosawa is an event director, and here is the turning point: before August 9, instead of remembering the past, she receives an invitation to Haiti from her brother. Will there be a grand trip? Yes, if a woman manages to break away from the past, to which she has been attached for so many years. The picture was rightly recognized as the best film of Kurosawa and the piercing, but at the same time ceremonial anthem of life, which the cult director performed shortly before parting.
