Movielogr

Dodes'ka-den (1970)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Drama

Overview

This film follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on.

Length 140 minutes

Actors

Yoshitaka Zushi | Kin Sugai | Toshiyuki Tonomura | Shinsuke Minami | Yûko Kusunoki | Junzaburô Ban | Kiyoko Tange | Michio Hino | Keiji Furuyama | Tappei Shimokawa | Kunie Tanaka | Jitsuko Yoshimura | Hisashi Igawa | Hideko Okiyama | Tatsuo Matsumura | Imari Tsuji | Tomoko Yamazaki | Masahiko Kametani | Hiroshi Akutagawa | Tomoko Naraoka | Noboru Mitani | Hiroyuki Kawase | Akemi Negishi | Eimei Esumi | Minoru Takashima | Kazuo Katô | Michiko Araki | Toki Shiozawa | Masakazu Kuwayama | Hiroshi Kiyama | Kôji Mitsui | Jerry Fujio | Masahiko Tanimura | Atsushi Watanabe | Kamatari Fujiwara | Sanji Kojima | Kayako Sono | Yoshiko Maki | Toshiko Sakurai | Toriko Takahara | Matsue Ono | Reiko Niimura | Akira Hitomi | Shôji Ichimura | Shin Ibuki | Masaya Nihei | Takashi Ebata

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Date ViewedDeviceFormatSourceRating
10/22/2021Movie ScreenFilmTheater8 stars
 

Viewing Notes

Was p cool that CU Boulder / International Film Series programmed my last unseen Kurosawa film in 35mm. Wasn’t gonna pass up the opportunity to see this. I knew very little going in but this is Kurosawa’s first color film and made during a dark period in his career (apparently he attempted suicide after this movie was released and poorly received). This is very much a companion piece to his LOWER DEPTHS dealing with a group of people living in the slums yet made do the best they can.

It has some humorous moments but this is generally a somber and occasionally sad story. Now having seen all of the AK’s films (I don’t count that early film he co-directed only films where he is the sole director) this is the one that shares a look & feel associated with Nobuhiko Obayashi; the bright colors and disorienting backgrounds esp. the actual Dodes’ka-den segments probably inspired Obayashi.

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