Slideshow
RAN
乱
Japan, 1985
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Mieko Harada, Peter, Akira Tereo, Jinpachi Nezu, Hisashi Igawa
Music by Toru Takemitsu
Costume Design by Emi Wada
WINNER Academy Award® – Costume Design, 1986
Approx. 162 mins. 4K DCP.
Literally, Chaos… Resting after a wild boar hunt among spectacular green mountainscapes, 16th century daimyo Tatsuya Nakadai (HARAKIRI, HIGH AND LOW, THE HUMAN CONDITION, etc. etc.) decides to divide his domain among his three sons, instructing them with a parable: individually, three arrows can easily be broken; together, they are strong. And then… A giant battle between color-coded armies is fought solely to the great Toru Takemitsu’s plaintive music, culminating in a single gunshot; an entire castle burns to the ground, as Nakadai’s glassy-eyed Lord Hidetora staggers down its steep stone steps; an ice-cold, knife-wielding seducer stops post-coitus to squash a moth (Mieko Harada's tour-de-force scene garnered laughter, cheers, and applause from hardened New York Film Festival audiences at the U.S. premiere); Hisashi Igawa’s plotter is so steeped in betrayal that, dared to switch sides, he cries, “Where could I go?;” a blind man teeters on the verge of a precipice he can only sense. A decade-long dream (he had storyboarded the entire film in his own watercolors), Kurosawa's adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear proved the master's flair for epic sweep and stylistic innovation undimmed at the age of 75, the culmination of his career. Clarified Kurosawa, “I said culmination, not conclusion.” Four Oscar® nominations, including Best Director, Cinematography, and Art Direction, with Emi Wada winning for her dazzling, three-years-in-the-making costumes.
A RIALTO PICTURES RELEASE.
Reviews
“SPECTACULAR! Among the most thrilling movie experiences a viewer can have!”
– Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times
“AWE INSPIRING!”
– Village Voice
“A Lear for our age, and for all time… a huge, tormented canvas, in which Kurosawa even contrives to command the elements to obey his vision. The results are all that one could possibly dream of.”
– Chris Peachment, Time Out (London)
“More than the brilliant set pieces (the first big battle scene, an orgy of bloodletting played in almost total silence) or the stunning images (a single figure in a sea of grass and rock; a battalion on horseback galloping along the shore, their herky-jerky movement the effect of shooting with an ultra-long lens), it’s the shapeliness of the whole that impresses, as if Kurosawa had held the entire 160 minutes, like a painting, in his mind’s eye.”
– Amy Taubin, The Village Voice