Ran (1985)

Ran is an engaging tale of human disintegration, at both the levels of the individual and of the family. The setup is perhaps a bit heavy-handed, having Hidetora kill the boar as a way to show us his power, but Kurosawa does complicate it with the old man's show of weakness by falling asleep at the circle afterwards. Saburo is drawn with similar complexity, as are a few of the other roles (Lady Sue comes to mind). But it was the more clearly drawn characters who really drew me into this film. Lady Kaede, Tango, Kurogane, even the scheming Jiro and Taro were more compelling. As an epic, what the film really needed was a driving force, and these characters provided it. In a sense, the complicated character of Hidetora spends the majority of the film simply wandering through the landscape of these clearer minds' making.

The film is masterfully made, progressing steadily from the opening scene to the closing. The former is a display of power—men on horseback atop a grass-covered mountain, in the midst of a boar hunt. The latter is a scene of desolation—a lone blind man, feeling his way back from the perilous edge of a ruined castle wall. Kurosawa paces the story continuously down this trajectory, as both Hidetora and his family fall into ruin. In truly tragic style, the end is always clear. Kyoami, the fool and the film's truth-teller, puts it best when he jokingly tells his lord to "hurry, what with hell so near and heaven so far."

The lingering question of the film is "Why?" What character trait is it that causes Hidetora's world to fall apart? Is it Hidetora's vanity, his impulsiveness? The naked ambition of his sons? The vengeance inspired by his cruelty? I think the answer is that it's all of these things, and in a greater sense, none of them. What the film shows is that his empire is a fragile, complicated structure, held together with little more than his own will and the calcification of custom. When he pulls himself out, like a linchpin, the entire assemblage disintegrates into the Chaos of the film's title.