Dodes'ka-den

One of Kurosawa's more imaginative and compelling works of intense humanism. Deserving of more praise.

Expressionistic color highlights this series of vignettes featuring characters from the Tokyo slums: a retarded boy obsessed with streetcars, a teenage girl abused by her uncle, a cuckolded weaver and his repentant wife--and others. There is little hope in this world, but the colorful vision of a beautiful house being "built" by a poor car-dweller and his small son, plus the bright images of streetcars painted by the retarded boy suggest that the human imagination can redeem even such squalor.

This film is bleak, bleak, bleak. An anamoly in Kurosawa's career. This type of multi-threaded plot is very unusual for him, but it works quite well. Every thread is compelling drama with interesting characters, except the one about the weaver and Ocho. It's also our introduction to his unusual sense of color, which is always startling, but here it's almost brutal. The visions of the imaginary house are incredible. One of my favorites from his post-Mifune years.

High grade soap, but most of the strands are complex and subtle (for instance, the story of the man and boy dreaming of building a house was not about the redemptive power of imagination so much as the flight from responsibility). Seems to be a connection between ALONE IN THE DARK (1982) and the scene here in which the monk calms the agitated sword-wielder: in terms of structure, Sholder improves on Kurosawa by opening with the explanation, which becomes humorously comprehensible only later on.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. The themes of despair and hope are strong yet subtle enough to not distract. The characters are wonderful, my favourite being the guy with the tics... the scene where he defends his wife's character was heartstopping. Everyone else has mentioned Kurosawa's use of color but I'll give a shoutout to the set design, it was perfectly balanced again between hope (Roku's drawings) and despair (the outer edges of the "village").

One of the more distinctive of Kurosawa's films, on a par with his late film, Dreams. As in most of Kurosawa's late period, he makes use of vibrant colors, through lighting, set design, and painting. He also color-coordinates some of the characters with their surroundings, while others stand out. The film sets out to offer a slice of life in the slums, and in so doing, Kurosawa is able to humanize each of these characters, even those we find unlikable. Really a beautiful film.

Kurosawa's expressionistic masterpiece. From beginning to end this is a beautiful and melancholic depiction of the lows of life and the presence of hope even in the darkest places. Every character is wholly fleshed out and the interweaving of the parts allows it to be not just a bunch of great stories but an incredible commentary on life. OF course, I also have to mention the plethora of great performances and most of all the strikingly colourful visuals.

# 777

beautiful and depressing not sure how anyone can watch this film and come away unaffected.

A dark mosaic of slum-life isn't all doom and gloom...but it seems to be the norm. In fact, when one family finds peace with their potential misery, they are never seen again. The old man kind of represents this, though it's a thoroughly cynical view - get used to it, because it ain't getting any better. Still, it's engaging and the colour (Kurosawa's first use of it) is excellently used, especially when the man and his son are suffering from bad fish.

a whole bunch of stories here, all of them are good, none of them are explored very deeply. on the whole kurosawa's first color movie is one that any fan should watch with anticipation

Pretty impressive to be able to develop that many characters in 140 minutes.

A real laugh riot

For the first several minutes, I had the strong desire to turn it off. But once it settles down and the stories start to unfold, it becomes compelling. And many of those stories are so bleak as to be practically unbearable. Why do so many good Japanese movies have such awful music? It would be bad even by Ozu standards, sounding like aggressive Muzak, except you don't know the tunes--nor would you want to. It would not be out of place in a 70s American family drama.

I had heard this movie is depressing, but I think there is a lot of hope in its multiple stories of slum life. Kurosawa does some stunning things visually with his use of colour in the set and costume designs, as well as with lighting. Makes the film visually appealing despite its dark mood, while also using those colours to dig into the emotions of the characters.

77.000

One of Kurosawa's strangest and most interesting films. Despite being set among such despair, the mosaic of eccentric characters are threaded together with whimsy, and I think it's ultimately optimistic and life-affirming. The color palette is unorthodox and expressionist. My only complaint is that it's a little overlong.

kurosawa is not just that guy who makes samurai films, but in his later period revealed himself to be full of imagination and daring. like von trier's 'dancer in the dark', this is just as much about the happiness found in internal fantasy as it is the awful circumstances these people find them in, and as a result, it's at times staggeringly beautiful. i believe that his colour period actually represents his peak. recalls some of herzog's smaller, stranger dramas.

The technical aspects were really nice, I loved the visuals. I found the narrative less interesting though. None of the characters or stories were very interesting and it was poorly paced. Not really a bad film, but just didn't work for me.

70.375

A mosaic type film of the lives of people in a slum in Tokyo, with people who are good, bad, mixed, damaged, and think they drive a streetcar. A ton of this is good and really well done, but in the end the pieces didn't quite come together for me to make it a great one. I think there were some pacing issues and some of the stories were more interesting than others. It's a good film and it's well done. It feels like it's really close to being great, but a little something is missing that stops it