GREAT DIRECTORS MEDLY : AKIRA KUROSAWA - "RED BEARD"

Ok, last Kurosawa for a while, I promise. This, I have to observe, is for the more discerning viewer. Point one, it is three hours long – and that in itself puts off some people. Point two; this three hour film is rather slow moving. But as with most Kurosawa films, it provides us with an unexpected and informative view of Medieval Japan, delicate emotions and simply wonderful photography. You just have to be prepared to patiently watch the film, look for and be delighted by the little gems you find scattered around in it. If you feel you’re able to do this, you’re definitely on to the right film.
A young doctor arrives at a out of the way clinic in Medieval Japan. The young doctor is an ambitious young man, full of hopes of becoming the Shogun’s personal doctor one day. He is versed in the latest western developments in medicine. The clinic on the other hand, is desperately under-funded. It relies chiefly on Japanese medicine, is understaffed and the patients themselves are often desperately poor. Thus the young doctor feels, and in fact is, most exceedingly out of place there. Upon arrival the young man thinks he is just paying a courtesy visit for his father. Red Beard, the surly head doctor of the clinic quickly puts him right. He is there to work, indefinitely. The young doctor revolts. He first is sure there is some kind of mistake, but he is quickly set right. Then he has another idea, he will make himself such a nuisance that Red Beard will fire him. He sets about this, but after a while, his doctors’ instincts get the better of him. Little by little, and almost despite himself he gets immersed in day to day life in the clinic. Who knows, maybe Red Beard has more to teach him than he initially thought.
This is, of course, a typical “maturing youngster” movie. But don’t sneer at it because it is typical. You see the way I see it, a film is a classic mainly if its topic is still relevant today. And although Medieval Japan is quite far away from my personal here and now, the main topic is actually pretty damn relevant. Think about when you first started work. You were fresh out of school, young, arrogant… You reckoned you knew it all, you reckoned you deserved to run the bleeping company. You hated your “first rung of the ladder” job, it was under you. Heck, I even know people who went down the “fine, I’ll get myself fired” route. But then? You saw the value of experience. You learnt. Important things happened to you, you developed… The sky’s the limit as to how the story continues, but you know what I mean… You see the parallelisms, right? Of course, the beauty of staging this in a hospital is (apart from it being a very original setting) is the profusion of people there. It is a clinic for poor people, so the stories are sad, striking, laced with death sometimes, recovery and happiness other times, the possibilities are endless. In short a very striking and intelligent film that you may well find something you sympathize with in… And of course brilliant photography, so beautiful and so clever. If you do watch the film, please note the sequence where the mad woman approaches the intern reclining in the hospital… My personal favorite…