Growing up in America, you develop a certain attitude, a particular set of reactions toward the kind of entertainment that Hollywood producers think you should see. After a while, you end up watching movies merely as a pleasant way to kill time, albeit at a cost of $3 to $4 an hour for a first-run feature.
Watching a foreign film is a little like opening an anonymous Christmas present; you never know what you're going to get, although you're pretty sure it's not going to be a lump of coal. Very often, I find myself asking "What did the <character|director|writer> mean by that? The answers are sometimes revealing.
So it was last weekend that I passed by the foreign film rack at the local video emporium, after having safely tucked The Talented Mr. Ripley beneath my arm. I walked away with a film called High and Low, selected on the basis of the names of Akira Kurosawa, the director, and Toshiro Mifune, the starring actor, on the carton.
Titled Tengoku to jigoku in Japanese [which translates as `Heaven and Hell', if I am not mistaken], the story concerns a business executive, named Gondo, who faces a demand for ransom on the eve of an all-important business deal. The characters and the audience are first led to believe that the kidnap victim is Gondo's son, but it quickly develops that the kidnapper mistakenly grabbed not Gondo's son, but the son of his chauffeur. This mistake does not divert the kidnapper's resolve; the ransom demand remains: pay or the boy dies! The first part of the film deals with the decision that Gondo must make between his career and his family's material status, on the one hand, and the life of the kidnapped boy, on the other. If he tries to save the latter, he will certainly lose the former.
For most viewers, sitting comfortably in their easy chairs, there would not appear to be much of a question, here. Save the boy, comes the natural response, the money's only money. When Gondo refuses to do so, and hands a document to his executive assistant to hand carry to another city to consummate the acquisition of corporate stock that will assure his corporate survival and his family's well-being, we think him unreasonable; he begins to resemble a monster. And yet we know that somehow, Gondo will Do The Right Thing™, and we continue to observe.
It appears to me that Kurosawa at this point allows Gondo's wife to say to Gondo the things that we, as the audience, would like to say to him. Save the boy, she urges. You don't know what you're asking, replies Gondo. But it's the right thing to do, she says. You've never been poor, says Gondo. And so on, until we, the audience, really begin to understand the enormity of the decision before him.
Before Kurosawa caused this to happen, I found it was easy for me to give away Gondo's money, because it wasn't mine. I never had it, I never earned it, I never had the opportunity to use it to assure my family's material well-being or to drive some scurvy, greedy bastards out of the company where I work.
That latter point - to digress a moment - is an important part of Gondo's characterization. When we first meet Gondo, he is in conference with three other executives from their common employer, `National Shoes', who believe their common boss - they call him the `Old Man' - should be replaced, and that the product line should be `improved' with shoes that wear out faster, resulting in greater sales. Gondo literally tears one of their sample shoes apart as he describes just how shoddily its made, and shows his colleagues the door. They vow to get even. For a moment, I think I'm watching a screenplay with a strong Romantic flavor, in the sense of Ayn Rand.
Once Kurosawa and Mifune complete the process of making us aware of the gravity of the decision, Gondo of course does the right thing and ransoms the boy, who is returned safe and sound. At this point, the plot leaves Gondo's living room and the story takes on a second life, as a police procedural (indeed, it is said the story is based on the Ed McBain book King's Ransom).
The second part is no less engrossing than the first. The detail with which everything is presented is rapid-fire, with some curious twists and turns. There are leads that lead to dead ends, and others that lead to dead bodies. The police decide to go for a conviction for murder instead of kidnapping. They finally get their man, as was the case for all good movies shot in 1963.
I mentioned what I thought was a kind of Rand-like Romanticism earlier, and I don't think it's my imagination: Gondo seems very much a capitalist hero. He is tough, but fair, illustrated not only by his behavior, but also in the remarks of the foreman at the National Shoe factory when questioned by police. Gondo cares very much about his work, as shown by his outburst over the poor-quality shoe at the start of the film, and his critical appraisal of shoe displays some time after the kidnapping, as he wanders the streets as a freshly minted, out-of-work shoe manufacturing executive. And there is one final item...
The very final scene, where the condemned kidnapper/murderer confronts Gondo in a visitor's cell prior to his execution, reminded me of the episode in Rand's The Fountainhead where Ellsworth Toohey asks his intended victim, Howard Roark, the question "Tell me, what do you think of me?" Here, the kidnapper - who did the deed solely out of envy for Gondo's wealth - puts on a brave, give-a-damn face yet still wants to know how badly he's upset Gondo's life. Just as Rand's Roark counterpunches Toohey with a quiet, but deadly "I don't think of you," Gondo answers honestly and candidly, informing the condemned man that he's got a new job at a new company where his voice counts and that, in short, he's making a comeback. Upon hearing this, the prisoner becomes hysterical and appears to lose his mind, and the film ends. It's probably not the way Hollywood would've done it, but it gets the job done.
Is there a Kurosawa-Rand link at work here? Was the former influenced by the latter? I have no way of telling, but if I had to bet, I'd say no, at least not directly. The elements that make this film so good are the same elements that Rand identifies in her Romanticism, and that are consequently found in her work. Yet these elements are not hard to identify, and I think Kurosawa uses them well in this film.
I would classify this film as a see-again, and a recommendation for other films by Kurosawa and Mifune.
Cheers...
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