Yojimbo

Kurosawa's 1961 movie, the inspiration for 'Fistful Of Dollars'. It is clearly a wonderful film, but not always entirely what one respects.
It is not a word we throw around lightly, but we will say it for Kurosawa; he is genuinely a Shakespearean director. This is in the boldness of his images, the fact that there is the surface lack of subtedly and the power of the images. Underneath that, of course there are as many layers as you like of intelligence and subtedly. There in those same mixtures of servants and kings, humour and pathos.
The bold images come much from underexposure. Rested against the pale backdrops, the dark characters quite literally loom large, with large faces. In 'Yojimbo' Kurosawa shoots froma mixture of identifying/mysterious hand-cam following our hero, and some portraiture. Indeed, he has a relation to Flemish and Baroque portraiture (wider than Fellini). There is some wonderful, humanistic balancing of the large shapes of the characters. The way he sets them up is wonderful, but the fact is that we are close enough for this not to impede with over-formalism on the plot.
Kurosawa is the great director also of using a mix of different shots. He is happy to have some of these severe close ups, behind or on the face. He uses rapid camera movement. The again, he has wonderful wide images, with the wind blowing the dust. This gives a wonderful sense of an out-of-shot quiet, of the whole world being still among the action and violence he loves.
This film is surprisingly funny. It has a lightness of tone, which add to the almost deliberate artifice of the piece. There is a certain staginess, a theatricality to the piece, even evident in the plot. This is a fascinating move; Kurosawa perhaps suggesting that each character is, in a way, dressing up.
This isn't Kurosawa's most weighty film on the surface, but in hindsight there is enough here for more careful study. A key film, and a real pleasure and joy to watch.