Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho
the Bailiff brings to mind the first line of Ford Madox Ford's The Good
Soldier: "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The film has a
penetrating mournfulness. Mizoguchi develops his medieval fable about moral
freedom and slavery with intuition, cunning, and an overarching sense of
tragedy; as it uncoils, this masterwork spirals and expands to encompass all
the tricks of history and fate, all the failures of ethics and character that
can defeat the best intentions of idealists. Despite the antiquity of
Mizoguchi's epic folk tale, it speaks to a world scarred by fascism--indeed, the
movie may register with American audiences more strongly now than when it
premiered four decades ago. The setting is an eleventh-century regime that
rewards automatic obedience and efficiency, punishes individualism and
altruism, and condones private slave camps that grind men and women to death.
The whole environment--physical, emotional, and moral--is close to that of
Schindler's List. When the antihero, Zushio (Yoshiaki Hanayagi), an escaped
slave who becomes a governor, succeeds in freeing his former fellow captives,
he, like Oskar Schindler, loses everything except his self-respect. It may seem
odd for Mizoguchi to name the movie for its villain--the ruthless taskmaster of
a sprawling compound--instead of for the late-blooming Zushio. But the choice
reflects the director's tragic vision. The film is about virtue tortured and
altered, emerging only partially triumphant. Zushio's statesman father, exiled
because he shielded his peasants from a military draft, taught his son that
"without mercy, a man is like a beast." When kidnappers separate Zushio and his
sister Anju from their mother--the children are sold into bondage, the mother
into prostitution--the boy can't hold onto his father's ideals. In Sansho's
inferno, Zushio becomes a barbarian. Like the worst concentration-camp Kapo, he
willingly follows Sansho's command to brand attempted escapees on the
forehead--even if the victim is a 70-year-old man who has labored for half a
century and yearns only to die free. The first half hour, which depicts the
downfall of Zushio's father and the dispersal of his family, is a cascade of
flashbacks and present-tense action. Kinuyo Tanaka brings a tremulous eloquence
to the role of the mother--she's the movie's heart as much as the father is its
conscience. The most beautiful and ominous image is of the family walking
through a field of long grass and reeds, the flora floating above their heads
like an army's plumes; the most devastating sequence shows the mother and nurse
being thrown into a boat while the children are seized onshore. Once Zushio and
Anju arrive at Sansho's camp, this volatile lyricism gives way to a steady,
cumulative power. It's as if Mizoguchi is saying, with melancholy, that this is
how the world works. Mizoguchi's packed compositions express the harrowing pull
of the narrative line--and the residual humanity that tugs against it. Every
positive action in this movie has an opposite reaction, leaving an increment of
glory in defeat. When Zushio regains his empathy and honor and flees Sansho's
camp, Anju (the spiritually radiant Kyoko Kagawa) protects his flight with her
life. There's never been a more rending and transcendent vision of reunion than
the tearful clasping of Zushio to his hobbled, half-mad mother. Zushio finds
her on a tidal-wave-ravaged island. He tells her that Anju and his father are
dead, then begs her forgiveness for arriving without the wealth or power to
help her; in order to follow his father's precepts, he had to relinquish the
office of governor. His mother replies that if he weren't faithful to his
father's memory, she and Sansho "couldn't meet here this way now." Irony and
tragedy merge-- you cry for what they've lost and what they've saved. The movie
explores the strengths and the tenuousness of family ties in scenes that are
freshets of feeling. In Mizoguchi, as in Faulkner, the past isn't deadÑas
Faulkner said, "It's not even past." When Sansho sees the freed and elevated
Zushio, he exclaims, "It's like a fairy tale! A slave becoming a governor!" But
in this fairy tale no one lives happily ever after. Terrifying and cathartic,
Sansho the Bailiff is a morality play without easy moralism. -- Michael Sragow
CREDITS
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi Produced: Masaichi Nagata
Planning: Hisakazu Tsuji Screenplay: Fuji Yahiro and Yoshikata Yoda, from
the story as told by Mori Ogai Cinematography: Kazuo Miyagawa Art
direction: Hiromoto Ito Lighting: Kenichi Okamoto Music: Fumio Hayasaka
Sound: Iwao Otani
LINKS
Read a review by Jim Emerson, the editor of Cinemania, here.
Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho
the Bailiff brings to mind the first line of Ford Madox Ford's The Good
Soldier: "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The film has a
penetrating mournfulness. Mizoguchi develops his medieval fable about moral
freedom and slavery with intuition, cunning, and an overarching sense of
tragedy; as it uncoils, this masterwork spirals and expands to encompass all
the tricks of history and fate, all the failures of ethics and character that
can defeat the best intentions of idealists. Despite the antiquity of
Mizoguchi's epic folk tale, it speaks to a world scarred by fascism--indeed, the
movie may register with American audiences more strongly now than when it
premiered four decades ago. The setting is an eleventh-century regime that
rewards automatic obedience and efficiency, punishes individualism and
altruism, and condones private slave camps that grind men and women to death.
The whole environment--physical, emotional, and moral--is close to that of
Schindler's List. When the antihero, Zushio (Yoshiaki Hanayagi), an escaped
slave who becomes a governor, succeeds in freeing his former fellow captives,
he, like Oskar Schindler, loses everything except his self-respect. It may seem
odd for Mizoguchi to name the movie for its villain--the ruthless taskmaster of
a sprawling compound--instead of for the late-blooming Zushio. But the choice
reflects the director's tragic vision. The film is about virtue tortured and
altered, emerging only partially triumphant. Zushio's statesman father, exiled
because he shielded his peasants from a military draft, taught his son that
"without mercy, a man is like a beast." When kidnappers separate Zushio and his
sister Anju from their mother--the children are sold into bondage, the mother
into prostitution--the boy can't hold onto his father's ideals. In Sansho's
inferno, Zushio becomes a barbarian. Like the worst concentration-camp Kapo, he
willingly follows Sansho's command to brand attempted escapees on the
forehead--even if the victim is a 70-year-old man who has labored for half a
century and yearns only to die free. The first half hour, which depicts the
downfall of Zushio's father and the dispersal of his family, is a cascade of
flashbacks and present-tense action. Kinuyo Tanaka brings a tremulous eloquence
to the role of the mother--she's the movie's heart as much as the father is its
conscience. The most beautiful and ominous image is of the family walking
through a field of long grass and reeds, the flora floating above their heads
like an army's plumes; the most devastating sequence shows the mother and nurse
being thrown into a boat while the children are seized onshore. Once Zushio and
Anju arrive at Sansho's camp, this volatile lyricism gives way to a steady,
cumulative power. It's as if Mizoguchi is saying, with melancholy, that this is
how the world works. Mizoguchi's packed compositions express the harrowing pull
of the narrative line--and the residual humanity that tugs against it. Every
positive action in this movie has an opposite reaction, leaving an increment of
glory in defeat. When Zushio regains his empathy and honor and flees Sansho's
camp, Anju (the spiritually radiant Kyoko Kagawa) protects his flight with her
life. There's never been a more rending and transcendent vision of reunion than
the tearful clasping of Zushio to his hobbled, half-mad mother. Zushio finds
her on a tidal-wave-ravaged island. He tells her that Anju and his father are
dead, then begs her forgiveness for arriving without the wealth or power to
help her; in order to follow his father's precepts, he had to relinquish the
office of governor. His mother replies that if he weren't faithful to his
father's memory, she and Sansho "couldn't meet here this way now." Irony and
tragedy merge-- you cry for what they've lost and what they've saved. The movie
explores the strengths and the tenuousness of family ties in scenes that are
freshets of feeling. In Mizoguchi, as in Faulkner, the past isn't deadÑas
Faulkner said, "It's not even past." When Sansho sees the freed and elevated
Zushio, he exclaims, "It's like a fairy tale! A slave becoming a governor!" But
in this fairy tale no one lives happily ever after. Terrifying and cathartic,
Sansho the Bailiff is a morality play without easy moralism. -- Michael Sragow