Customer Reviews

Dodes'ka-Den

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If I were living like any of the people of the Tokyo slums in Akira Kurosawa's first colour film, Dodes'ka-den, like them, I'd be living in illusion and imagination to counter the squalid conditions. Living for them, but in my case, it'd be drowning. That's the premise of this movie, a testament to the human spirit and how it keeps on going despite adversity.

There's no plot in this film, as it tells of the various people living in the slums, some in coloured tin corrugated roofs, others in dirty, dingy travesties of huts, and in the case of an oddball boy who pretends he's a streetcar conductor and spends all day shuffling to who knows where. He goes through the motions, putting on his cap, pushing the buttons, pulling levers, and muttering the words "Dodes'ka-den." Which leads to the title. It's a Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound a train makes on the tracks. Roughly translated, it's like clackety-clack. The smaller kids who see him throw pebbles at him and cry out "trolley crazy."

My favourite characters are the bedraggled derelict and his young son who live in a beaten up, wheelless VW bug. The son goes out at night and gets scraps from a friendly sushi shop man. During the day, the father discusses their dream house, and we see his designs, from the gate, fence, and house, come alive, with dramatic sounds and colour. He must have been an architect or designer, and he escapes his squalid condition by envisioning a dreamhouse. There's a vivid example of colour cinematography at work, when standing under glaring yellow sky, we see the eerie blue light cast on him and his son, ill from food poisoning.

The drunken buddies who swap wives are two of the most colourful, but there's an interesting theme. Both couples are colour coordinated, clothes, house, even wash basins. And at times, they swap wives. The yellow husband is so drunk, he stays at his buddy's red house and with his wife, while his buddy goes to his house. Wonder how many bottles of sake they drink after work. But the wifeswapping has dual meaning, an escape from the ordinary, but also a lack of symmetry that is restored when both yellow-coded husband and wife are reunited and the same with the red-coded couple.

Then there's Tamba, the druggist, a man in his seventies or early eighties who's a wise, sage, and compassionate character. The way he defuses a violent sword-wielding drunk is amazing! I won't get into specifics but he shames the drunk into going to bed. He also helps a man wanting to commit suicide a reason to go on living. He seems to represent the face of an older and uncomplicated Japan, experienced by the past, living as he can in the present.

Hei is the most haunting, and his eyes are that of a dead man. He never says a word in the movie, and it's clear that he has been deeply traumatized by something in his past, which we learn later. It's as if his soul has been drained. A character looks at a tree and wonders what kind of tree it is, before saying "it's no longer a tree when it's dead." Substitute man for tree and we get Hei. Oh, and me as well.

Shima is a salaryman who's nice enough, but he has a funny walk nearly like the Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks man and a facial tic that drives him into a brief fit, complete with snorting. The tic represents that there's more to a person than a mere flaw.

Some of the info we get from the gossiping circle of women who spend the day doing the laundry in the slum square, including a sensuous long-haired woman who seems to know it all, and witnessing the parade of life.

This was Kurosawa's first of seven colour films and its failure culminated in him attempting suicide. Understandable, as despite its being panned, it's actually a sober, at times depressing, but ultimately hopeful look at people. Very underrated film that's deeply in need of reappraisal.

I remember seeing this movie on TV a while back and always wanting to watch it again, but found it too hard to find. I don't like how underrated this movie is. Sure its not as good as Kurosawa's masterpieces like Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Ran (what movies are?) but it still deserves attention, as it is a great film nonetheless. Like a Yasujiro Ozu film (Floating Weeds, A Tokyo Story) this movie has a pretty simple story and characters, but deep emotions. I finally got my hands on the import DVD and its better than I even remember it. When I heard that this movie has been shaved off 100 minutes and the complete, uncut edition can't be found anywhere, I was kinda depressed. I mean, this is already a great film, but with those extra 100 minutes, (if they were really good!), could have rivaled Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Ran as Kurosawa's masterpiece. But I guess we'll never know unless some DVD company (cough, cough... Criterion Collection) can find the original negative and give us the complete edition on DVD. How sad... a great movie like this being a box office failure, it deserves so much better than this. No wonder Kurosawa attempted suicide! Oh, well, this movie is fine as it is and still great in its cut version. I just really hope I can see the complete version someday! If you are a Kurosawa fan, you should still buy this movie! (don't be turned off at the fact that this was a commercial, financial, and box office failure!)

Kurosawa's first color film originally came in at 244 minutes and the studio executives were aghast. They quickly cut it to about 140 minutes and reportedly destroyed the original negative in so doing. This along with the lack of public and critical acceptance at the time drove the great genius to a suicide attempt. In it's original form it could well have been Kurosawa's great masterpiece. As it is, it's a little quixotic and hard to follow, but a stunning piece of movie making. The children's train drawings shown during the prayer scenes were collected by Kurosawa from children all over Japan for this film. It is pointless to recap the story, but I just say to you see it and you'll never forget it. Perhaps Criterion could find the orignal version when it comes out on DVD, let's hope so!

It doesn't say it in the Amazon description or the video box, but the film is letterboxed to about 1.66:1 (which appears to be the original aspect ratio).

Since Kurosawa was a master of using the whole frame, this is very good news. I was prepared to live with a pan-and-scan edition; finding that it was letterboxed was a very nice surprise.

Also, according to the IMDB trivia page, the "244-minute original running time" is a myth.

Kurosawa's first color film and a magnificently poignant and deeply human tribute to a group of slum dwellers living in a modern Japanese city. It consists of a series of vignettes, all held together by their commonly shared poverty motif, and are about: a dreamer who imagines building a mansion and his son who dies from eating spoiled food he's begged from restaurants; a crippled man who defends his ungrateful wife; a young girl who slaves for her drunken uncle who gets her pregnant; a kind old man who gives away what little he has to a thief; two drunken men who exchange wives and then switch back again; a blind man who cannot forgive his adulterous wife; and a retarded boy who imagines he operates a trolley car and goes up and down the streets hollering "Dodes 'ka-den" (which means "clackey-clack"). The scenes are at once heartbreaking and comic, and not for a moment does Kurosawa stoop to sentimentality or preachiness. The cinematography is stunning. A major movie-watching experience.

I saw this film more than 25 years ago and it still makes me smile when I ride a trolley or train. It takes very little imagination for me to convert the sounds of steel wheels on rails into the simple do-des-ka-den cadence. And with the conversion of sound comes an alteration of vision as through the trolley windows, I see Pittsburgh's urban humanity through the compassionate lens Kurosawa's uses to show his brave characters. This was my first experience with Kurosawa, and I always imagined this film as his version of "Cannery Row".

Dodeskaden portrays the beauty inside the struggle and pain of human existence.The images will never leave me. This and Itami's " Tampopo " are my all time Japanese cinema favorites.

Although not as well-known as several of his samurai films, I would rate Kurosawa's Dodes'ka-Den in his top four or five films. The movie is more of a slice of life than a traditional story with plot and character development and growth. Mostly, we follow the lives of some of Japan's poorest citizens, who live next to a large construction and debris waste site.

The movie starts out with a wonderful pantomime performance worthy of Charlie Chaplin himself, as a mentally challenged young man pretends he's a trolley car driver. The movie becomes increasingly surreal and abstract as the colors morph into wild oranges and reds splashed across the screen, and the characters become more and more nonsensical.

I can't say the movie was very uplifting, but it sure is one great piece of art. Dodes'ka-Den is still way ahead of its time, which is probably why it wasn't well-received when it first came out. Strongly recommended.

A kinder, gentler version of GUMMO?

This quirky, light-hearted little gem won an Academy Award in '72 for Best Foreign Film. It also was acclaimed director Kurosawa's first movie shot in color.

It's a ragged assemblage of tales strewn together from the Tokyo slums. Vagrants, drunks, and other sordid characters use their wits and imagination to cope with their feeble lifestyles. This story doesn't have much of a plot or cohesion, but it is chock full of compassion and vitality.

One mentally-challenged kid is completely fascinated with streetcars. He spends his days pretending to be the conductor, and constantly utters the sound effects from his pretend ride "DODES'KA-DEN, DODES'KA-DEN" (loosely translated clickety-clack). Other kids tease him and call him "Trolley Freak".

Then there is the dad and son who seek refuge in an abandoned car. They constantly daydream of life in a beautiful house, and their visions often grace the screen.

Another favorite moment of mine--one night a thief sneaks in through the window of an old man's home, looking for money or valuables. The owner awakens from his sleep, and happily gives the intruder some cash. Then he genuinely tells the thief he can come back later for more, and can use the front door instead of crawling through the window. A very interesting reaction.

There are lots of other simple but touching moments that will invoke sympathy, laughter, and various emotions. A fine job again by master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. He uses a vivid display of colors to convey many different aspects of humanity. 4.5 stars.

Dodeskaden is one of the most unique films in the Kurosawa filmography. It went against almost everything he's done before it, and it was the beginning of his late period, in which he only made seven films between 1970 and the year he died, 1998.

This is one of Kurosawa's most strinkingly beautiful films. It has some of the most memorable colour cinematography in all of cinema. Combine the fact that it is about slum people living on a Tokyo rubbish tip makes it an even more remarkable feat. This was Kurosawa's first color film, and the color is absolutely amazing. Kurosawa shot this film in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio (forgoing his usual 2.35:1 framing), and it really makes the film much more intimate and, from a technical standpoint, makes the colours more vibrant. This film came out during a rather bad time for Kurosawa. He hadn't completed a film since 1965's Red Beard (another underrated film), and had just been fired from the 20th Century Fox production Tora! Tora! Tora!, because of creative differences and Fox treating Kurosawa like an assembly line director. He was having a difficult time in Japan receiving financing, so he formed a production company with 3 other top Japanese directors. Japanese films at the time were more concerned with monsters and Yakuza thrillers than art or big themes, so Kurosawa's group wanted to make films with substance and art. Dodeskaden was the first film of this venture. Sadly, it was also the last. It was a commercial failure, which led to the group's disbandment. No other films were made from this venture. Shortly after this, Kurosawa attempted suicide. Luckily, he survived, and went on to make 6 more films, including several masterpieces (Ran, Dreams, Madadayo, Dersu Uzala).

This film is really a departure for Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune was not in this film. Kurosawa and Mifune had huge disagreements on Red Beard (its production was almost 2 years before the camera), and they never made another film together. The film is more of an ensemble piece than an actual epic, heroic story, which is were the films Kurosawa was known for making. Despite its subject matter, it's actually a gorgeous film, with excellent performances, a beautiful music score by Toru Takemitsu (one of Japan's most famous composers), and amazing cinematography. It has several memorable scenes, including the boy who is "trolley crazy" (the word Dodeskaden is actually the sound his imaginary trolley makes), the two drunks who can't tell the differences between their wives, and a powerful scene in which a man married to an onery woman defends her to his friends, and defends her eloquently.

It's one of Kurosawa's most underrated films. It is not as fantastic as Kurosawa's best work, but it's still worthwhile.