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Comments 1 - 11 of 11

Paul's avatar

Paul

"I have seen 'Sansho' only once, a decade ago, emerging from the cinema a broken man but calm in my conviction that I had never seen anything better; I have not dared watch it again, reluctant to ruin the spell, but also because the human heart was not designed to weather such an ordeal." - Anthony Lane, film critic The New Yorker
14 years 2 months ago
TheGallopingGhost's avatar

TheGallopingGhost

That Anthony Lane quote is spot on. Watch this when you have plenty of time to pay attention because you will probably never watch it again.
13 years 5 months ago
UnEnfantPerdu's avatar

UnEnfantPerdu

Oh Lord What have I just witnessed. Dont think I've seen anything as beautiful or as brutal.
9 years 8 months ago
Adamov10's avatar

Adamov10

great great great film
10 years ago
Dieguito's avatar

Dieguito

Brilliant movie!! Japanese honor culture is incredible
12 years 7 months ago
Camille Deadpan's avatar

Camille Deadpan

I'm always crying with Mizoguchi's or Ozu's movies.
3 years 3 months ago
Jumping Elephant's avatar

Jumping Elephant

Thank you so much for the Anthony Lane quote! I feel compelled to see this now.
12 years 6 months ago
Siskoid's avatar

Siskoid

In Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, a governor is exiled for being too nice to the peasants, but this isn't his story. Rather, it's about his family who try to rejoin him, living at the whims of the kindness or cruelty of strangers. The cruellest is Sansho, a slave master who gets his hands on the two kids and tests their ability to follow in their merciful father's footsteps, both literally and figuratively. Human pain is contrasted by beautiful cinematography, nature that doesn't care about the drama (and indeed seems to take a hand against humanity). Is mercy a singularly human trait? The much-heralded final shot is perhaps a reflection of the audience. According to our own attitudes, we might think Mizoguchi is telling us that world is made of cruelty, or that he is being merciful to us and the characters by panning away from their pain, or both, or more. But like most films that are about enduring hardship, my investment is limited, and I'm not entirely convinced the film delivers on the quality of mercy it stresses so much, or something gets lost in translation, perhaps.
7 months 3 weeks ago
Rohit's avatar

Rohit

Some useful comments here
12 years 1 month ago
george4mon's avatar

george4mon

good film, but there's a lot of overacting.
11 years 6 months ago
nicolaskrizan's avatar

nicolaskrizan

Great – I almost even forgot about the overacting typical of many Asian movies!

http://1001movies.posterous.com/946
12 years ago
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