By Isaac Hamlet
The 1985 Japanese movie Ran — based on Shakespeare’s King Leer — will play at FilmScene on Sept. 9. The screening is one of the many Iowa City events celebrating more than 400 years of Shakespeare.
The film opens following the killing of a boar who is likened to the lord himself; the hunter then falls asleep and has a vision, after which he passes the rule to his eldest son, Taro. Accordingly, Taro will receive the “first castle.” He himself decides he will move to the outer castle with his second and third sons staying in the second and third castles, respectively. His youngest son calls his father old and foolish for stepping down and allowing the other two brothers so much power, an argument breaks out and Lord Hidetora disowns and banishes Saburo and Tango, the servant who tried to defend him.
One of the lords visiting his father follows Saburo and tells him and his manservant how much he admires the way they stood up to the old lord. He then invites the exiled prince to marry his daughter.
Paranoia begins to seep into the old lord’s mind as he sees his son do what he feels is needed to assert his authority. One of these precautions include signing a contract in blood that essentially states everything Hidetora said when announcing his son’s new rule. Offended, the retired ruler storms out.
The advisers of the second son, Jiro, advise him to usurp Taro and his wife while the hour is ripe. Yet when Hidetora comes to his second son, he soon finds himself again cast out.
Disenfranchised, the old lord and his band exile themselves and begin raiding villages to survive.
Shots of clouds fill the film (especially in the first half), getting progressively darker, larger, and more imposing — an on-the-nose metaphor that is none the less effective as we see a picturesque countryside gradually drenched in blood and war.
The set pieces through the film create the scale of most modern blockbusters with none of plastic CGI soldiers who are most often found marching toward tedium. The dozens of deaths that tend to grow desensitizing when rendered with computer effects, the seams and imperfections of which are nowhere to be seen. Yes, there are many deaths on screen, but they have more meat on them.
One battle sequence in the middle of the film offers such impressive staging and such an emotional punch, that a less ambitious film could have been built entirely around the scene.
And even with its grand battles, the film still focuses on the characters that have to live through the movies trauma.
Hidetora, for example, is a man who in many ways merely seems more well-seasoned than he does old. He commands authority even after he has renounced his power. He has no trouble planting an arrow in a man on the ground while he himself leans out the window of a tower. Yet, suddenly, in a more private setting, the bruised mind and battered psyche of the old man become immediately apparent.
There are occasional stray moments from one or two of the scenes that come across as out of character, but they are so small and rare that they can be quickly forgotten, especially when one considers that when a scene works (which, in the case of Ran, is essentially always) one gets the sense that they’re seeing the best possible version of that scene.
The film examines what happens on the whims of those with power and desire. Like with some of the best Shakespeare plays, once the end is reached, everything that has transpired seems to have been both entirely avoidable yet all too predetermined.
It’s the kind of movie that lets a moment cook. It knows exactly how long to hold a shot of Taro listening to his wife recount her mother’s suicide. It knows when to show us the broken Lord Hidetora contemplating life and ruin.
It’s a film that that knows what it’s trying to say and says so in the best possible way.