|
|
|
Akira Kurosawa is one of my favorite directors, although I have only seen four of his movies. Madadayo is his last film. It is definitely not his best. Among the names of some American movies that have used plots from Kurosawa films, ones you might recognize are The Magnificent Seven [The Seven Samurai], Last Man Standing [Yojimbo], and a little known motion picture by the name of Star Wars [The Hidden Fortress]. Granted, The Seven Samurai and Yojimbo were Kurosawa's take on the American westerns (except that Kurosawa used samurais instead of cowboys, which works because samurais are much cooler). I digress. Madadayo deals with an old teacher loved by many of his students who retires. The teacher's house is bombed in a WW2 raid, so he lives in a small shack. Madadayo doesn't really have a plot, but the movie is very episodic. There's a funny part where they celebrate the professor's 60th birthday-this is followed by a sequence where his students raise enough money to build their professor a house, and this is followed by the quest to find a missing cat. The cat sequence takes up almost half an hour of this two hour movie. It was probably symbolic, but I missed what the symbolism was supposed to mean. Madadayo is called Madadayo because at each of the professor's birthdays, the students ask him if he will die. The professor replies, "Madadayo [not yet]." I think it's worth a rental, but definitely is more quirky than his other films. If you want to be introduced to Kurosawa properly, catch The Seven Samurai! I give Madadayo *** out of ****. |