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Sansho the Bailiff (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Kinuyo Tanaka (Actor), Yoshiaki Hanayagi (Actor), Kenji Mizoguchi (Director) Rated:
NR
Format: Blu-ray
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 276 ratings
IMDb8.4/10.0
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February 26, 2013
Criterion Collection
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Genre Drama
Format Blu-ray
Contributor Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kenji Mizoguchi
Language English
Runtime 2 hours and 4 minutes

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Product Description

When an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually separated by vicious slave traders. Under the dazzling direction of Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu), this classic Japanese story became one of cinema’s greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 5.92 ounces
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ 26251879
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Kenji Mizoguchi
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Blu-ray
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 2 hours and 4 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ February 26, 2013
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Criterion Collection
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00A8QDHYW
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 276 ratings

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
276 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Movie-Lover
5.0 out of 5 stars Lost and Found
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2008
Verified Purchase
I have been ordering movies from Amazon for a couple of years now, and I have been quite satisfied with every purchase, thank you Amazon.com!

So, my first Japanese films were Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Rashomon - being ranked on the IMDb Top 250. They were great! I immediately became a fan of Japanese cinema. Later I decided to check into a different director, and then I came up with Kenji Mizoguchi. I decided to give Ugetsu a try. When my order came in, I got around to watching it - at the time, I loved it! I thought it was quite an excellent little film. I liked it enough that I decided to check out Sansho the Bailiff, which has a higher rating on IMDb, although sadly not on the Top 250. I actually was more interested to see this one than Ugetsu. So I was excited, I knew I was up for an even bigger treat. It arrived and I couldn't wait to pop it in my DVD player! Once the movie started, I was not disappointed... What an amazing film I thought to myself. It has got to be one of the very best films I've ever seen! It has such a brilliant story and it is well told through to the end - which is such a beautiful ending! It's almost a shame that some people won't even look at films like this, it almost pains me that I can't even get my own mother to sit down and watch it with me, and if you've seen the ending of the film you will understand what I mean... I find that the story is a little similar to Ugetsu, but what is amazing is the big difference they are in terms of quality film-making! Sansho the Bailiff is far better told, more engaging, sharper in direction and pacing, and far more beautiful! I even went back and re-watched Ugetsu and I thought it was an average film in comparison to Sansho the Bailiff! This film even has one of those qualities that it's so perfect, that you can't help but want to watch it over and over! Oh how much I recommend any true fan of cinema to check out Sansho the Bailiff! It is certainly now one my of dearest favorites.

I also would like to state that Criterion is an absolute savior to cinema, it has gathered some amazing films from around the world and places them in DVD collections of film-goers. I'm looking forward to buying more Criterion Collections eventually as soon as I can save up some money, as they can be a little expensive, but they are often worth the price nonetheless! It sure beats half the films that comes out these days...

Anyone who is reading this, definitely give this masterpiece a try! It deserves to be better known by the mainstream film-goers as it possibly can, classics like this shouldn't ever be forgotten! I certainly will be viewing it a few more times by the year is out! Hopefully I can get my mother to watch it with me some day... -_-
19 people found this helpful
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Elaine Campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars RANKS NO. 1, ALONG WITH GRAND ILLUSION, FOR BEST EVER!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2010
Verified Purchase
After having just viewed a Japanese film ranked as "One of the top 10 films of our time," and finding it to be, in my estimation, excellent, but not deserving of a higher ranking, I decided to view Sancho the Bailiff, as it was in my collection of unwatched films, really just to get it out of the way.

Boy, was I knocked out of my recliner chair readily enough as the movie kept progressing to spellbinding and profound proportions.

I found myself truly watching, not only one of the best 10 films ever made, but one of the best, in my estimation, top 2 films ever made, the only comparison I can make being of that with Grand Illusion. The two are equal in superb quality in every possible way.

By the way, I rank as number 3, The Lives of Others.

This film is about how the cruelty of a few destroys the lives of many due to the acquisition and maintenance of unconscionable power: personal, governmental and even, perhaps, worldwide.

The director, Kenji Mizoguchi's (1898-1956) elder sister was given up for adoption when the family encountered hard times. Somewhat later she was sold as a geisha, affecting her brother's, and our director's, weltanschauung profoundly. He was also privy to observing his father's brutal treatment of his mother and sister.

A star of the film, Kinkyo Tanaka, was the first Japanese woman who worked as a film director. She first directed Love Letter in 1953, and she directed five further films as well.

This film is the best depiction of the experience of slavery (both of master and subject) that I am familiar with. It is awesome, it is spellbinding, it is overwhelming. It really has to be viewed in the marvellous Criterion footage of it to be adequatetly described!

Let's remember this great film's watchword: "Without mercy, man is like a beast."
25 people found this helpful
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Andy
5.0 out of 5 stars Beloved Tragic Japanese Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2021
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Powerful tragedy based on a medieval myth of a magnanimous local governor's attempt to do right for his people upsets the feudal lord and in turn he and his family are exiled, separated, and sold into slavery. A harsh story of mercy and humanity versus monstrous cruelty, with an outstanding ending that is truly emotionally haunting. The supernatural elements of the myth are wisely toned down and placed in a historical setting to heighten the human tragedy. A great epic, without any of the battles or sword fights one usually associates with the genre, but highly atmospheric. The direction, cinematography, editing, music and acting are all sublime. A masterpiece from one of the masters of Japanese cinema. Also recommended the somewhat of companion films Ugetsu and The Life Of Ohara, or Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. The Criterion Collection Blu Ray is beautiful, includes an audio commentary, interviews and a booklet containing the short story version of the myth on which this film was based.
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James Chambers
5.0 out of 5 stars Now my favourite MIzoguchi film
Reviewed in Canada on January 11, 2023
Verified Purchase
Kept putting off getting this DVD, I've seen more than a half dozen of MIzoguchi's films, but the recent Sight and Sound poll and this movie's place in it spurred me on. The story is based on an ancient folk tale that was then published in 1915. The story involves a noblemen who tried to intervene on behalf of the peasants in his district to protest increases in taxes and other hardships, and he's banished for his troubles. His family falls on hard times, but things get worse. On a long trip, the young son and daughter are kidnapped and sold as slaves to Sansho the Bailiff, and their mother is sold far away to be a cortesan. Each of the three long to reunite together. The film shows the hard lives for the many slaves and workers in ancient Japan, and whether these three are able to be together again, or not.

The picture quality is great, clear and crisp, you'd think it was a blu-ray. I don't always listen to the commentary, but it is stellar. The commentary speaker explains so much about the time period, about Mizoguchi's methods and about the correlation between the movie and the published story. The extras including discussions by the 1st assistant director, a critic and one of the lead actresses, illuminating how Mizoguchi worked, and his view about the production and studio meddling ie. Mizogucki wanted the story to focus on Sansho, but the studio wanted the son and daughter to have great emphasis. One of my happiest Criterion purchases in a while.
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Andrés Ramírez Sanchéz
5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR TO BUY THE WONDERUL MASTER PIECE?!
Reviewed in Mexico on August 1, 2020
Verified Purchase
To all myy dearest fellowmates and cinema 'aficionados', do not hesitate in buying this wonderful Criterion Collection edition of one of Japan's film jewels. It is worth your money; it comes packaged with a nice cover box, many extras (Interviews, Critical opinions, etc.) and a very useful supplement: the literary sources that inspired Mizogouchi on doing this fine film (you are going to get a pleasent surprise when you see the nice Booklet inside). Say, who else gives you that kind of wonders (wonders for true Cinemagoers)?
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XVB
5.0 out of 5 stars Buen Mizogouchi
Reviewed in Spain on May 14, 2020
Verified Purchase
De las varias obras que conozco de Mizogouchi, me parece de las más acertadad fuera de su mundo más cercano de cortesanas y actores. No llega al nivel de la Cuentos de la Luna Pálida, pero recomendable su visión.
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gianni
5.0 out of 5 stars Capolavoro giapponese
Reviewed in Italy on January 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
La moglie e i figli di un governatore, destituito per troppa umanità, vengono catturati e venduti da mercanti di schiavi. La madre diventa cortigiana. I piccoli Zushio e Anju sono venduti al crudele intendente Sansho e vivono in condizioni difficili sperando un giorno di poter fuggire per rivedere i genitori. Dopo dieci anni riusciranno nell'intento ma soltanto Zushio e la madre si ritroveranno. Video e audio buoni, audio in lingua originale, sottotitoli in italiano. Grandissimo film di Mizoguchi
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Film Buff
5.0 out of 5 stars Mizoguchi at the peak of his powers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 6, 2017
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SANSHŌ DAYŪ (Sanshō, the Bailiff)
(1954, Japan, 125 min, b/w, English subtitles, Aspect ratio: 4:3, Audio: Mono)

Spoilers ahead!

Sanshō Dayū is Mizoguchi Kenji’s most perfect film and one of the corner stones of world cinema. Personally, The Life of Oharu (1952) means more to me and I probably want to watch Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) most often of all, but of the three jidaigeki which won awards at Venice in three consecutive years, Sanshō Dayū is the most perfectly structured and the most satisfying both intellectually and aesthetically. It is fully the equal of and structurally superior to Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai with which it shared the top prize in 1954. Stylistically poles apart, both jidaigeki journey to the heart of the human condition in profound meditations on what it takes for man to survive chaos. Kurosawa’s masterpiece is all about the superbly paced action sequences, the astonishing editing and the muscular way his characters are etched out to provide a profoundly moving dazzling spectacle without parallel anywhere. Mizoguchi’s film on the other hand is altogether quieter, sadder and (on the surface at least) simpler. The film’s opening epitaph describes it as “One of the world’s folk tales full of grief,” and it is in essence a Buddhist meditation on the importance of mercy in perilous pre-civilization times (the film is set in the 11th century chaos of the late Heian era), as well as a meditation on the transitory nature of human existence termed ‘mujō’, which translates as the evanescence of all earthly things, the mutability of all earthly phenomena. Life is suffering and one cannot avoid one’s fate, the wheel of existence turning inexorably in an acceptance of both life and after-life as a single complete entity forever rejuvenating itself. Renunciation of material desires and the assertion of spiritual purity wherein the self is sacrificed for the greater good are the values of the day in a work of art which is more than just a mere film. It is an article of Faith.

As is well known, Mizoguchi (like his father before him) converted to Nichiren Buddhism in 1953 and people are always recalling the incident when Tanaka Kuniyo entered his bedroom in Venice to find him on his knees praying to Buddha that he wouldn’t leave the city until his Ugetsu Monogatari won an award at the film festival which of course it duly did. He carried a Buddhist icon of Kwannon, the Goddess of mercy, similar to the one that is so important in Sanshō Dayū around with him wherever he went. This ‘conversion’ has been treated with a fair amount of skepticism by critics, especially Japanese ones who saw behind it a cynical ploy to please the foreign press (especially the Italians and the French) and to win another award and yet more kudos for himself. Foreigners wanted to see traditional Japanese culture and so Mizoguchi duly obliged, also throwing in a denunciation of the fascism that had gripped Japan from the 1930s through to 1945 with the film’s destruction of Sanshō’s slave labor camp. It is revealing that the film has never been as popular in Japan as the preceding jidaigeki which themselves had barely been noticed. Only the foreign attention turned the heads of domestic audiences who were actually more interested in gendaigeki modern day tales and in the more obvious visceral excitement of Kurosawa. I would suggest that whether Mizoguchi’s conversion was genuinely motivated or not, both Ugetsu Monogatari and Sanshō Dayū are intensely Buddhist works and rather than cynically deride the director’s motivations we should simply evaluate what we have in front of us.

As is often the case in great art, profundity lies in simplicity and the story (Yoda Yoshikata adapting Mori Ōgai’s take on the ancient folk tale which has come down from oral tradition) is a straightforward morality tale. The late Heian era was a time of chaos, “an era when mankind had not awakened as human beings.” The governor of Mutsu (in present day Aomori) named Taira no Masauji (Shimizu Masao) is being deposed for being too liberal, too ‘democratic’ with the peasants. Before being sent to exile in Tsukushi (Fukuoka) he instructs his wife Tamaki (Tanaka Kuniyo) to take his two children Zushiō (later Hanayagi Yoshiaki) and Anju (later Kagawa Kyōko) to her brother’s place in Iwashiro (Fukushima). As he says goodbye he gives an icon of Kwannon to Zushiō and forces him to memorize the moral of the film: “Without mercy, man is like a beast. Even if you are hard on yourself, be merciful to others. All men are created equal. Everyone is entitled to their happiness.” Seven years later the three are journeying to meet their father when they are tricked by an evil priestess who sells them to pirates. Tamaki is sold off to a brothel on Sadō Island (off the coast of Niigata) while the children are sold to the slave labor camp of Sanshō Dayū (Shindō Eitarō) where they are made to work as adults. Ten years pass and Zushiō has forgotten his father’s instruction to be merciful. He is now an overseer and on Sanshō’s command brands an old man’s face with a hot iron. Zushiō and Anju learn their mother is still alive on Sadō from a recently arrived girl and in a miraculous forest epiphany Anju insists Zushiō run away while she occupies the guard. Knowing she will be tortured to tell where Zushiō has gone she drowns herself in a lake. Zushiō hides in a nearby temple and eventually gets to Kyōtō where he appeals to the Emperor’s chief advisor who at first dismisses and imprisons him, but then tells him about his father’s death and rewards him with the title of governor of Tango, the Kwannon icon proving Zushiō’s identity. Sanshō’s slave camp is in Tango and Zushiō journeys back, frees the slaves and sends Sanshō into exile. Importantly, he does not kill him (he shows mercy) and also importantly, he renounces his title (and all material desires) and journeys to Sadō to find his mother. Mother and son are reunited on a deserted beach, she now decrepit, blind, worn-out. In an unbearably moving scene Zushiō tells her that Father and Anju are both dead and he has renounced his title in order to be faithful to Father’s instructions. Tamaki replies with one of the most heart-breaking closing lines in cinema – “But I know that you have followed your father’s teachings. And that is why we have been able to meet again.”

From the father’s morality lesson to the mother’s closing words, the theme of ‘mercy’ (and its binary opposite ‘tyranny’) streams through the film’s narrative with the Kwannon icon hanging around Zushiō’s neck linking the two ends seamlessly. On receiving the icon Zushiō repeats his father’s mantra several times. Seven years later he is still repeating the words. When the travelers meet the evil priestess she seems to offer mercy, but she is actually on the side of tyranny as are the pirates who separate the mother from the kids. When the kids arrive at Sanshō’s camp he says, “Show them no mercy!” But they are shown mercy by Namiji (Tachibana Kimiko) and then by Sanshō’s son Tarō (Kōno Akitake) who has Zushiō repeat the mantra before going off to practice it himself by becoming a priest. In the camp we are given numerous examples of tyranny, slaves worked to the bone, whipped and beaten, Sanshō branding a rebel, and eventually Zushiō taking over the branding having lost belief in his father’s words. Redemption is at hand through the tyranny of him abandoning a sick Namiji on a mountainside transforming into mercy, saving her life and escaping in the process. The Kwannon icon which Anju had given to Namiji as Zushiō no longer needed it is returned to him. Possessing it wills him to resume his father’s fight against tyranny. At first though, mercy must be shown to him both by the priests at the nearby temple who hide him and then eventually (after first being imprisoned – ‘tyrannized’) by the Emperor’s chief advisor. He’s another person inspired to mercy by regarding the icon and remembering Zushiō’s father. The film shows that all power is evil whether it be the dark ‘Ministry of the Right’ who control Sanshō’s manner, or the Imperial authorities who though less barbarous are still un-empowered to abolish slavery. Zushiō rebels against both by using his power to destroy Sanshō’s slave camp and then by giving it up in a gesture of renunciation, a process key to the Buddhist faith. Zushiō shows mercy to Sanshō by not killing him as he must surely want to and he shows it again by apologizing to the old slave Nio (Sugai Ichirō) for having branded him earlier. He renounces all material desires, indeed all material possessions except for his Kwannon icon so that he can meet his mother on a footing wholly observant of his father’s words.

So far, so over-schematic one might say, and people have accused this film of being excessively simple-minded. However, this is to ignore the exquisite power that charges the film’s narrative structure with such emotional gravitas. This power lies in a song and its appearance and re-appearance throughout the film ratchets up the tension to an extraordinary degree impelling us from family break-up to family reunion with an unstoppable momentum which fairly sears off the screen. It begins with the scene of the three travelers and their nurse making a camp for the night. Zushiō and Anju have fun cutting thatch to use for a makeshift shelter. They cut a branch together and they tumble backwards laughing. It is an intimate moment between the two kids. Then off-screen we hear their mother Tamaki calling them by their names, her voice floating miraculously across the air. Later in Sanshō’s camp after ten years have passed a woman from Sadō is brought in and she starts to sing a beguiling song which reminds us of this earlier scene (“Zushiō…Anju, how I long for you…”). This alerts Anju to the knowledge that her mother is still alive and queues up an exquisitely inserted sequence on Sadō, the song distorting as we cross the water to see Tamaki frantically trying to escape from the island to find her kids. She is caught, dragged back to her brothel and maimed (her tendon is cut) in a traumatic scene. Lastly we see her hobbling back to the cliff where she stares back at the mainland taking up her sad song again. We are returned to the camp and Zushiō irritably tells Anju to stop singing the song. Things change in the forest when Anju hears her mother’s song wafting magically through the air. They cut thatch to shield Namiji and tumbling backwards they remember that time when their mother called them long ago. This changes Zushiō who undergoes an extraordinary redemption afforded through his sister. He suggests they escape, but Anju wants to do it her way. He will escape with Namiji while she detains the guard. The plan works for Zushiō, but for Anju her decision means the ultimate sacrifice. The exquisite lake scene is one of the glories of cinema and is set up in four simple but perfectly calculated shots. First we see Anju advancing to the silver water through the trees. Then Mizoguchi cuts to a closer shot still framed with foliage but showing Anju’s back as she advances into the water. Then we hear her mother’s song again wafting over the lake (“Zushiō…Anju, how I long for you…”), an effect which sends shivers down one’s spine. Mizoguchi cuts away to show an old woman watching the scene (one of his ever-present inscribed narrator-observers which makes us FEEL and OBSERVE the action simultaneously), but then quickly cuts back to the lake as we catch the moment just after Anju’s head has sunk under the water surface and the ripples radiate out in circles like an aching memory. Words can’t describe the ineffable beauty of this scene, but the thing we carry most of all are the mother’s words which pushes us on ravenously to desire a final family reunion and an end to the mother’s suffering. Mizoguchi makes us wait of course and when the extraordinary final scene comes it comes with the same song although this time uttered haltingly from the cracked lips of a decrepit wreck of a woman sitting in a field beating the ground with a stick. Again, I find it impossible to find words for the sheer emotional power of this scene, a scene which the whole film has been building up to from the very beginning. As mother and son embrace, the camera cranes up in a manner similar to the ending of Ugetsu Monogatari. There peasants are seen toiling in the fields, here a man is raking seaweed to use as fertilizer, a very potent image of hope and of the rejuvenation of life. One cycle of life has been completed and another is set to begin with Zushiō and Tamaki together in the world of the living and Anju and the father together in the world of the dead, all four united albeit across the great divide. As Mizoguchi’s crane pans across the beach to look at the sea Hayasaka Fumio’s memorable music builds up to a huge crescendo unprecedented in Mizoguchi’s output and, one is tempted to say, in the whole of cinema. It has the same grandeur for me as the embryo floating back to Earth at the end of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The fact that this conclusion is so satisfying indicates how miraculously the film’s narrative structure in toto works.

Of course there is a lot more to the film than a heavily accented treatise on mercy and a beguiling song, though these, believe it or not, are the essential elements. But what gives the film its fascinating complexity is a sustained meditation on mujō, the transitory nature of human existence. This change is expressed in a number of ways. Most obviously all the characters are transience personified. Tamaki starts the wife of a nobleman, is sold to prostitution, broken by time and then redeemed as a mother at the end. Anju and Zushiō start as the children of a noble family and become slaves. Anju perishes but Zushiō becomes a despot (the branding of Nio), redeems himself back to his father’s position and then relinquishes all power in the end to revert back to dutiful son. The father starts as a figure of authority, but is stripped of his power and exiled to Tsukushi, a place in Kyūshū where traditionally criminals are sent to be punished (Sadō is another such place). Sanshō’s son Tarō makes the transition from son of a despot to champion of mercy as a priest while Sanshō himself morphs from camp commandant to street beggar. All is flux and life is ever transient as all these characters slip through the narrative to their various fates.

Mizoguchi himself draws attention to this mujō through the filmmaking apparatus itself, through the narrative structure and through superb use of the dissolve. I said the narrative structure is simple before, but sometimes this simplicity is deceptive. The sheer complexity of the opening sequence of shots which flick unannounced backwards and forwards across seven years is difficult to comprehend on first watch as we seize onto the simple idea that a family has split up and is planning to come together again in the future. The seven year ellipse is only apparent when we look at the film carefully and it’s down to Mizoguchi’s formidable powers at rhythmic almost musical editing that complexity is made to look like simplicity itself. Watch the opening ten minutes and we see there no less than three flashbacks all linked with delicious dissolves to heighten the strong family ties that bind these people together, ties which are about to be ruptured. The film opens with Tamaki, her two children and their nurse walking down a stream en-route to meeting the father. As the adolescent Zushiō runs down the path a wonderful dissolve takes us back seven years to Zushiō running as a child. In the first flashback we learn the father is being exiled, the peasants are protesting and the new authorities are imposing the new order. We see the father as a kind liberal and from the profile of his kind wife Tamaki Mizoguchi executes an exquisite dissolve taking us back to her scooping water from a stream seven years later. As Tamaki lifts the cup up so there is another dissolve to the second flashback where the husband is sipping water from a cup. Tamaki looking right meets the face of her husband looking left across time. Here the father delivers the film’s moral to Zushiō, giving him the Kwannon icon. From the icon there is another dissolve forward to the icon now hanging around the neck of the adolescent Zushiō as he walks down the path repeating his father’s mantra. Then another dissolve takes us from Tamaki walking to Tamaki helping her husband put on his shoes, her last act of kindness before he leaves. As the father journeys along the seashore Mizoguchi dissolves finally back to our travelers seven years later walking down the same way – “We are taking the same road as your father,” Tamaki tells her children, the words obviously having the treble meaning of following the father geographically, emotionally and morally. In a breathtaking way, in these opening minutes Mizoguchi introduces all the characters, tells us what unites them together and tells us exactly what the film is all about – the various themes of family, mercy and geographical uncertainty all subject to the vast transience of life, or mujō. The dissolve will appear two more times in the film, book-ending the sad sequence on Sadō Island and Tamaki’s fate there. It’s as if Mizoguchi elects to use the dissolve only to highlight the strong family links that are tested throughout the narrative, the dissolve being the one cinematic trick which most closely visualizes mujō. The use of dissolves to highlight family connections prepares us for the shocking way the very last section on Sadō is introduced. It’s done not with a dissolve, but with a lengthy fade out which emphasizes the finality of the concluding mother/son reconciliation scene and the fact that we have reached the narrative’s destination.

Robin Wood in his article enclosed in the booklet talks about the importance of fire and water in the film’s visual structure. He draws short of ascribing literal meanings to the numerous appearances of both, but I’d suggest that fire and water are the very agents of mujō and Mizoguchi deliberately highlights the elements to strengthen the Buddhist framework of his work. We can somewhat simplistically say that water is connected with the mother, Tamaki while fire is connected with the tyrant, Sanshō. This would be to equate water with goodness and fire with badness, but this is not Mizoguchi’s point. Obviously both elements have good and bad properties and the changes they effect are changes for the good as well as bad. Going through the film from the beginning, first we notice both water and fire have good properties before the family is afflicted. The family walk down an idyllic country stream, Tamaki draws a magical cup of water ‘for’ her husband and they leave a peaceful campfire next to the sea in their walk along the seashore. Fire as a threat is announced by the torch the priestess carries followed by the fire in her home which offers delusive comfort. Threatening fire is also present in the pirates’ camp (a campfire) and as they push the women into the boats separating them from the kids, water becomes threatening for the first time as well. The nurse Ubatake (Naniwa Chieko) is drowned and the kids later learn a huge body of water now separates them from their mother now isolated on Sadō. The very first shot of Sanshō’s slave camp features prominently a fire and next to it a slave being beaten. When we first see Sanshō he is sitting by a huge fire and the element is strongly connected with tyranny as he tells his staff to show the kids no mercy. Water continues to be a burden (Anju is weighed down by having to carry pails of water across her shoulders), but fire continues to define tyranny the most, especially when Sanshō takes an iron out of a fire and brands Namiji. Fire is also an important element of the portrait of greed and gluttony as Sanshō entertains a rich guest from the Ministry of the Right, the glutton’s eyes fastening on a box of gold and other goods while girls dance and torches burn infernally in the background, Tarō looking on with disgust.

The film breaks for ten years during which time the kids grow up. Zushiō has turned into a prototype Sanshō himself, branding the old man Nio as his master looks on approvingly. Water also continues to be a negative element as Mizoguchi takes us to Sadō to show us what is happening to Tamaki, the sea ever-connected with her suffering. The pivotal scene of the film is the forest redemption when Zushiō suggests escape. The tension of the moment as Anju takes care of the guard and he prepares his escape is conveyed by water dripping to the left of the frame. Once out of shot, the water continues to drip on the soundtrack as we have the sound of its incessant beating accompanying the camp guards rushing to find Zushiō and ordering Anju be confined. Water conveys hope here as it also does in the following lake suicide. Anju’s death is an end of her life, but it is the beginning of a new life ‘on the other side.’ In Buddhism life and after-life are one complete entity and Anju’s death is as much an expression of freedom as an expression of extinction. The ambiguity of water (its properties negative as well as positive) in mujō finds its greatest expression in this scene. Fire continues to suggest tyranny as Sanshō’s men sweep into the temple with their burning torches in search of Zushiō, but after this point fire takes on positive features. The next time we see it as incense burning on Zushiō’s father’s grave, a shot which also shows the sea as an equally benign presence. Fire becomes positively restorative the next time we meet it which is in Sanshō’s house after he has been exiled. Peasants cavort happily in front of huge happy flames, their freedom enabled by Zushiō’s actions. In the penultimate scene as Zushiō resigns his office he is told Sanshō’s house is burning down and we see the world changing this time for the better rather than for the worse. The film’s final scene is dominated by water and the events that have ravaged Tamaki’s poor life are rendered through metaphor as a tsunami, Zushiō learning that Sadō had been hit by one a year or so before. But as mother and son embrace and the camera cranes upwards and across the beach to the music rising so triumphantly the conclusion is that the sea (the water) which has for so long been destructive is now finally restorative.

It is rare to read an extended piece on Mizoguchi’s work without coming across some reference to his perennial theme of the suffering of women. Even though the main character here is a man (Zushiō) and the film focuses most clearly on mercy/tyranny and a meditation on mujō, female suffering is central to the whole of Sanshō Dayū. The pivotal lake scene rests on Anju’s decision to sacrifice herself for her brother. In practical terms it doesn’t make sense. Why doesn’t Zushiō just jump the guard? He doesn’t have to kill him. They could (with Namiji) escape if they simply gag him and tie him to a tree, for example. The decision to feature Anju’s insistence on her way of doing things can only come from one thing – Mizoguchi’s absolute conviction as a Japanese artist that mankind evolves through the willing, unselfish suffering of women. As in all his jidaigeki (especially perhaps The Life of Oharu and Ugetsu Monogatari as well as here), he is concerned with constructing “legends of women who suffer for an idea of culture which is clearly valorize[d] in the end” (Dudley Andrew). The idea is that Anju sacrifices herself so that Zushiō can carry on their father’s teachings, that mercy is the greatest thing there is in the Japanese cultural mind-set and (one is tempted to say) in human existence per se. As Anju makes her decision she ensures Zushiō takes the Kwannon icon from Namiji’s body, the idea being she is saving her family, but she is also ensuring the fight against tyranny continues. The film indeed shows Sanshō’s dominion crashing down and it is enabled through Anju’s sacrifice. The film’s heart though belongs to the mother, Tamaki whose suffering (and whose song) drives the film with such relentless force and extraordinary emotional resonance. Mizoguchi was probably thinking of his own mother who suffered domestic tyranny at the hands of his father before she died at a relatively young age when the boy needed her the most. He was attracted to plump maternal women all his life and with Miyagi (in Ugetsu Monogatari) and Tamaki he gives us a pair of heart-breaking mothers which really epitomize the director’s very personal conviction arising from within his own culture that while the iniquities women suffer under patriarchy might well be terribly unfair and fully worthy of being fought (as they are in virtually all his gendaigeki work), the suffering of women is “a necessary feature of social existence” (Andrew), one which shapes civilization as it has come down to present day Japan and other countries and cultures where patriarchy remains pervasive. An artist can’t do anything to change what for many is a stoic fact of human existence, especially if he himself is a part of that patriarchy. All he can do is make people aware of it and in Sanshō Dayū he makes probably cinema’s greatest statement on the subject.
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