[March 23 1910, legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa was born. To celebrate the centennial of his life, his prolific contributions to the world of cinema, and immense impact on the hearts and minds of those quietly mourning his absence, staffers at Row Three are (rather enthusiastically) taking this opportunity to share their own experiences of the Kurosawa catalogue]

There are many films that stand out in Akira Kurosawa’s body of work as both essential classics and personal favorites of mine. I am especially a sucker for his period tales of samurai, ronin, bandits and warlords, and while Ikiru was the first film of his I ever saw, it was The Hidden Fortress that really put the hook in me.

But here, I’d like to write about a film altogether separate from his rousing adventures; one that I did not discover until long after my initial exposure to him, and that often gets lost amid all the shouts of praise for Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and High and Low. This film is Dodes’ka-den from 1970, which Kurosawa made after the lengthy production of 1965’s superb Red Beard and his failed, self-destructive stint on Twentieth Century Fox’s World War II film Tora! Tora! Tora!, for which he was originally going to direct the segments focused on the Japanese military.

Certainly a far cry from his samurai and noir films, Dodes’ka-den shows Kurosawa’s independent spirit in virtually all of its characteristics. Adapted from Shugoro Yamamoto’s book A Town without Seasons, it follows various characters as they live their lives in a slum outside of Tokyo. Stylistically, it is most notable for being Kurosawa’s first color film, introducing an exuberant new visual aspect to his work that he would eventually deploy with masterful skill (particularly in Kagemusha, Ran and Dreams). In Dodes’ka-den, he allows his inner painter to run free, creating several beautiful compositions using vibrant costumes, backdrops, sets (often assembled in magpie fashion from brightly colored pieces of refuse and garbage), lights and even paint that he applied to the ground. Sometimes the frame is noticeably drained of color, leaving blank greys and browns that make the returning splashes of red, blue or yellow all the more striking.

Another interesting feature of Dodes’ka-den is its variety of emotional tones within the assorted tales, which range from hilarious to heartwarming to grimly serious. A man affectionately reassures his several illegitimate children, telling them that if they feel he is their real father, then it is so. A beggar and his son plan out their dream home together, yet reality painfully intrudes when the boy becomes ill. The funniest story is that of the two co-workers who repeatedly get themselves stone-drunk in the evening and swap their wives, with no harm done to the foursome’s friendship. Sometimes the film slows down considerably, most often in the story about an emotionally devastated man and the woman who begs him for forgiveness.

Not as concerned with plot as most of Kurosawa’s other films, Dodes’ka-den mainly focuses on its community of characters, thus allowing the viewer to grow quite familiar with and even close to them (as Kurosawa did during the filming, lamenting aloud once the shoot was over that he’d never see them again). It is their stories that make Dodes’ka-den such an affecting film – they all face varying levels of hardship, difficulty and despair in their lives, yet through resourcefulness, strength and hope, they find ways to endure. That, to me, is the key source of inspiration that the film offers, followed very closely by its director’s courageous creativity. Sadly, the latter didn’t immediately pay off, as the film was a flop upon its release, adding to the burden of doubt and sorrow that lead to the director’s suicide attempt in December 1971. Yet since then, it has deservingly undergone critical reconsideration. I myself greatly treasure it, and will continue to take away much from its fresh innovations, artistic integrity and comforting messages with every viewing.