THE LOWER DEPTHS Movie Review

Donzoko

Akira Kurosawa has transported the characters of Maxim Gorky's 1902 classic to an old Edo tenement at the beginning of the 19th century. In an ancient lodging house, a number of derelicts are assembled, including a kabuki actor, a sick old woman, a prostitute, a shamed, former samurai, and a thief (Toshiro Mifune). Lording over them are a corrupt, greedy landlord and his sexually insatiable wife (Isuzu Yamada). In this oppressive, nightmarish milieu, the characters on the bottom rung of society's ladder have only their fantasies to comfort them, and fantasize they do, with humor and fury. Kurosawa has made one of the most intentionally claustrophobic films of his career in The Lower Depths; we leave the theatre having felt trapped in this world he's shown us with such vividness, and the experience can be disconcerting. There's a lot of conversation in The Lower Depths, which can be trying simply from the standpoint of reading almost constant subtitles for a straight two hours plus. Nevertheless, this is a fascinating and near-experimental piece of work (the abrupt ending is experimental, and it outraged Japanese film critics when they first got a load of it). Previously filmed by Jean Renoir in 1936.

NEXT STOP … The Lower Depths (1936), Dodes'ka-den, The Iceman Cometh

1957 125m/B JP Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Ganjiro Nakamura, Kyoko Kagawa, Bokuzen Hidari; D: Akira Kurosawa; W: Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni; C: Kazuo Yamazaki; M: Masaru Sato. VHS HMV, FCT, COL