The Bad Sleep Well

This 1960 Kurosawa modern-day picture a loose update of 'Hamlet', a rich, intriguing, and gripping one at that.
The film starts off with the theme of watching being central. The rightly famous opening scene has not only the press pack and the cast watching each other, examining eacg other, but Kurosawa mirrors this theme with his direction, the long shots. This idea of watching others continues throughout the film; we frequently have conversations in threes, two making another act in a certain way, and we often have the idea of the businessmen existing in a world where they are distant, cool, and far away (the shots of large, empty boardrooms etc).
This theme though only foreshadows the central motif of the movie; the collision of the private and public spheres. From the wonderful restrained acting that occurs when the cake is wheeled in, to the final moments, we have an exercise in how both 'good' and 'bad' try to keep the home and the work, the family and the dirt, seperate, and how they fail at this. In the example of the wonderfully acted son-in-law (played by Mifune, showing his customary power and tension while hiding and restrainging it behind a suit and glasses) we have the revenge trope not being able to be extricated from what he so surely wishes is his 'real' life, of the woman he loves.
The film throughout plays with notions of shining a light into darkened corners, amply illustrated by Kurosawa's dramtic 'noir' use of shadows (Wadu, the conscience and 'ghost' of the film, has one of the finest 'noir' moments on cinema with his appearance from the shadows to terrify Shirai), notably the use of flashlight. Throughout, Kurosawa smartly compliments his themes by his use of in particular lighting.
Perahps the romance never quite gets going, and represents too much of a break from the rest of the action. This is also the case with the msuic, which seems rather off key, rather distarcting and unnecessary at times. It also goes on ten minutes too long (it deserves to be a long film, it needs the weight of being over two hours, but does stretch slightly) and some of the ending scenes lose their weight as a result.
Overall however, this is amulti layered and thought provoking film. One of the best Shakespeare 'adaptions', and one of the best, most intelligent, films about corruption out there.