Three clips are now available, revealing more footage (than the teaser) to give us more clues about Takashi Miike’s work on this samurai film. But let’s keep in mind, it’s just a first look!
#1, An elegant scene where a fallen samurai reveals his humanity. Few things to notice here: Takashi Miike’s nice directing, influenced by traditional japanese films ; shots composition reflecting the emotional state of characters, a red background to point out desperation, then two guards to underline the character’s suffocating ; playing with symbols, when the samurai armor falls down, the character obviously didn’t care about the frontier (2 lights) ; actor’s performance, it’s not Nakadai, but it’s balanced and touching.
#2, It’s few seconds before the famous suicide scene. And compared with the original scene, Miike’s version doesn’t give many explanations. Here, at least in this clip, the executioner doesn’t explain how to do seppuku, and why it’s important to do it according to the tradition. Miike doesn’t underline as much the cruel & inhuman weight of tradition. It’s more simple, but it still looks unfair. Notice some interesting compositions here, for example, the clear (literally) opposition between the soon-to-be dead man (in white), and the Lord (dark).
#3, A family dinner scene showing how life was before the drama (previous clip). With happiness flooding all over the scene, thanks to the Ryuichi Sakamoto’s soundtrack, which is definitely more classical and orchestral than the 1962 soundtrack. Strangely, the wife is kept visually apart (wood pillars), while close-ups are reserved to the grandpa and his baby (remember, he’s the storyteller, this reinforces its emotions, and what he’s lost).
According to these clips, Miike seems to continue what he did on 13 Assassins. Minus, the writing flaws, this film looks visually & emotionally more refined. A good sign, even if this remake still doesn’t feel like necessary: Is this the only way to direct an original & inspired samurai film nowadays?
Source: Festival de Cannes
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