It would be a stretch to call any Kurosawa film feminist. At best, his female characters are benign and background, with rare exception; at worst, they are nasty villains. I tend to overlook this when watching his films because the depth of his compassion is overwhelming. It's clear that he was a person who loved humanity and the downtrodden among us; his blindspot is unfortunate but not a quality that completely ruins his filmography. What made me bring this up here is that The Bad Sleep Well, while by no means portraying a strong female character of any traditional sort, does manage to have an interesting twist that could be seen as (unintentionally?) feminist in a forgiving light.This film is inspired in part by Hamlet, allowing each of our characters an antecedent in Shakespeare's play. Toshiro Mifune plays Nishi, our Hamlet stand-in, a man seeking to avenge his father's death. He has a best friend who barely has any screen time, our Horatio figure. Claudius is transposed from uncle to father-in-law, and Laertes is slotted in as the brother-in-law. Yoshiko, Nishi's wife, is our Ophelia. Like most, it seems Kurosawa left out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but that's forgivable, since he altered so much otherwise. Shakespeare is at most an inspiration here.What Kurosawa does that is interesting from a feminist perspective is that he alters Ophelia's role. He almost inverts it. She's not insane; she's physically disabled. Though she suffers from neglect, her role is more actively intertwined with the story. She's not wholly active; she's not an agent of her own will. But she's not mad, dancing Ophelia, limited to a few scenes then dead as one plot point among many leading to Hamlet's final confrontation. Yoshiko's role is not to emphasize the cost of Nishi's inaction--he's not at all inactive. Her role is more complicated, and herein, Kurosawa gives the one female character in his story (there is no Gertrude analog) more depth and power than poor Ophelia. It's interesting to note that one of the characters literally states that he wishes there could be a happy ending between Yoshiko and Nishi, as if Kurosawa is acknowledging the alterations he made to the inspiring tale.The other major alteration in regards to Ophelia is her ultimate fate. In fact, if this were a Hamlet adaptation, it would be one where Claudius wins, Ophelia lives, and Horatio's final scene is one of rage. This is an extremely bitter film, lacking any note of hope in its brutal ending. Even though Iwabuchi loses his family in the end, it seems like he's the sort of callous sociopath that would not care. The film is clearly an indictment of corporate culture, and that indicates it's made from a position of sympathy for the compassionate of the world. But like Hamlet, the story is one of revenge and the cost thereof, of how evil propagates evil in so many ways, including by driving good men to dark actions. It shows a Hamlet that is not beset by doubts--he regrets the evil he has to do, but he doesn't doubt that Iwabuchi and his associates are villains--and despite this, he still meets the same fate. The lack of evidence is not a matter of making Nishi hesitate, but a matter of frustration in that justice cannot be served. It's Hamlet turned upside down.
#madlad Mifune'It's not easy hating evil. You have to stoke your own fury until you become evil yourself.'I said in my last review of The Hidden Fortress that I wished for more than just thrills derived from the bare plot. Well, now I must contradict myself because in The Bad Sleep Well, Kurosawa chisels narrative cinema to perfection. He takes the classic revenge trope, and paints it with tears of charcoal cynicism to craft an intricately paced political-moral tale of corruption – but with the morals tumbling headfirst into the abyss.Mifune's character is the star of the show. His calm, stoical exterior is betrayed by his violent outbursts of rage at the people against whom he harbors revenge. He is idealistic in thinking that taking retribution 1) will satisfy his fury and 2) will bring the criminals to justice and ruin them politically, and thus, personally. He is constantly engaged in bouts of self-doubt, and wonders if he has not become the sinner by letting himself be devoured by the flames of vengeance. Mifune portrays this Hamletian inner melee between reason and desire with sublime tact. He is never once overpowering or dramatic. Contrary to Hamlet, he restrains his inner demons – a deed that makes him all the more dangerous when he loses control of his calm.It is in this philosophical torment (much more than in any explicit story-thread) that the film most resembles Shakespeare's Hamlet, as described in the Letterboxd synopsis. Still, I would be hesitant to call it an adaptation. It breaks free from Hamlet's story and stands on its own narrative ground, anchored by Kurosawa's sensitive flair for reading – or in this case, writing – between the lines.What makes Kurosawa's take unique is how he blends realism and idealism not just in Hamlet's character but in the movie's tone. He injects droplets of tenderness into his narrative by way of a doomed love story unfolding between Mifune's character and the daughter of his enemy he is prepared to take revenge against. Kurosawa lures the viewer into a false web of hope that makes his No Country For Old Men-style offscreen anticlimax much more climactic than any Shakespeare-inspired Hamletian dramatic monologue might have done so. Peak sweat-inducing cinema – and not from any pleasant chills.(Let's also geek out over the poster, shall we? It's brilliant.)
The problem with corporations is that they become too big to tackle. What may start off born from individuals quickly becomes autonomous, an amorphous and intangible beast that exists almost-purely in abstractions, but the regulations established come to bind its creators. Eventually it becomes an independent entity, the greed and selfishness of its workers fueling its very longevity.So what is the best way to survive in such a stomach? You climb, crawling over others if needed, until you ascend to the top of the corporate ladder (or at least as high as you can go). From there you're protected from the most immediate dangers, but you also need to keep those down below in control. This requires payment. Do you sacrifice your humanity?Or perhaps you remain on the base of this chain, and after a while you tire of the shit that rolls downhill. Unfortunately at this point one individual means nothing, not when what you're fighting has grown into a behemoth, and enacting meaningful change requires you selling your soul in a different way."It's pointless trying to use the law against evil people."The Bad Sleep Well outlines this struggle, how sometimes in order to defeat corruption we must not be scared to be corrupt ourselves. There are no 'good' or 'bad' actions in this world, only ones that push forward agendas and goals; companies are simply better at capitalizing on it, and bring with them the banal details of evil.How unfortunate (and fitting) it is, that even when one has given away their humanity to such powers that they still are treated inhumanely: as resources before as people. I suppose that's the appeal of the insubordinates, that they die with their dignity and troth intact.
