Scandal
Two celebrities–a painter named Ichiro Aoe, and a singer named Miyako Saijo–meet by chance while on vacation. The photographers who have been hounding Saijo for a photo catch the two together on a balcony, and their tabloid runs the story as one of a scandalous affair. When Aoe decides to pursue legal recourse, he takes on the services of Hiruta, a lawyer whose weaknesses make him an easy target for the exploitative tabloid owner. Hiruta finds himself caught between his conscience and his own vices and self-doubts, and his moral struggle threatens to cost his client the case.
Once again, we have Mifune and Shimura as the leads, and their relationship is the core that keeps the film afloat, even if it’s not all smooth sailing. Mifune’s Aoe is guileless to the point of almost seeming boyish. When he first learns of the scandal printed in the tabloid, and when things seem to not be going his way, his demeanor is almost one of confused pouting, as though injustice is unfathomable to him. This sense is magnified by his habit of marching straight into difficult situations with a simple matter-of-fact confidence that suggests both the quality of his character, but also his inexperience. When questioned about his motorcycle, he offers up frankly that he just likes the “I don’t care” statement it makes. But Aoe himself does care, and deeply, about those around him.
Shimura’s Hiruta is his opposite in nearly every way. He is cowardly and dishonest, driven by his own vices and his disillusionment. He stands hunched in nearly every shot, he is constantly sniveling and snorting and his vocal tick of leaning on the adverb “jitsuni” (which means “truly” or “honestly”) whenever he’s trying to make a convincing argument has the same effect as someone supplementing their statements with “to be honest”--namely that he comes across as disingenuous. There’s also an interesting thing at play, where throughout most of the movie, Hiruta enters a scene by peeping in on others. He’s caught watching through Aoe’s broken window early on, and later he eavesdrops on his family hosting Aoe and Saijo on Christmas. It’s generally unwholesome, but it’s also an interesting choice in that his peeking in on others, listening candidly, gives him certain traits we might associate with the tabloid and its photographers, peeking into lives and trying to extract private moments from them. From early on, we’re shown that this is a man who might not have the scruples to be fighting this behavior in someone else, or perhaps that his fight against the tabloid is only one aspect of his fight against this element of his own personality.
What starts off seeming like a fairly straight-forward story about expectations of privacy and libel instead rapidly shifts gears into a story about holding oneself accountable and rising above one’s own weaknesses. Aoe and Saijo, who start as our focal characters, fade into a supporting role while Hiruta takes center stage leading up to, and during the trial. He struggles with the expectations of his angelic daughter and the forthright Aoe, knowing that he has no intention of living up to them and hating himself for it.
There’s a lot of interesting elements at work here. The themes of privacy and defamation feel remarkably contemporary, and play with the question of the harm done in some interesting ways. Both Aoe’s and Saijo’s careers see a sudden upswing in the wake of the scandal, as interest in them surges, but neither likes that increased attention, with Saijo in particular noting the hate mail that calls her out as shameless. The muck puddle and Hiruta’s daughter’s tuberculosis seem to distinctly reference Kurosawa’s earlier film, Drunken Angel, and the dramatic change in character focus seems to anticipate later examples of that, such as in High and Low. It’s also interesting to me that Aoe is a painter, and that he’s praised for his striking use of color. Kurosawa himself was also a painter, and while we’re a long way from his first color film, he would eventually be praised for his striking use of color as well.
I also wanted to briefly touch on Hiruta's office, which is one of the film's weirder--and best--choices. Aoe goes to visit him, following the address on Hiruta's business card. He asks a worker in the building how to get to the fifth floor, and is told that the building doesn't have a fifth floor. Aoe finds his way onto the roof of the building, where a small wooden shack is constructed with Hiruta's name on the door. It's bizarre, and such a neat mix of the whimsical with lowliness. The entire sequence, both in its absurdity and the seriousness with which it treats it, reminds me of Being John Malkovich's Floor 7 1/2.
However, something in this film doesn’t quite click. Aoe is an interesting starting point for a character, but he doesn’t have much room to grow, and beyond the first half, the film is content to use him as a sounding board for Hiruta’s development. Hiruta himself is fascinating for how vastly different it is from Shimura’s previous roles, but I have to admit that I got tired of him long before the end. Certainly his being insufferable is the intent, and established to pave the way for his rise above that facet of himself later, but there’s a line between depicting an insufferable character to the audience and inflicting him on them, and I think Hiruta just nudges across that line here. The death of Hiruta’s daughter also feels narratively clumsy, completely bringing the tone to a halt, only to have it pick up unobstructed in the next scene, never to be mentioned again. I suspect we are meant to view it as the push for Hiruta to overcome his own moral weakness, but there’s little to justify it in the film’s climax.
Overall Grade: B. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s a film I appreciate more than enjoy.
Noteworthy Shots: I absolutely love the scene in the bar on Christmas night. Hiruta comes home to find that Aoe and Saijo have decided to spend Christmas with his family, and spies them singing Christmas carols with his wife and daughter. Not being able to bear the shame of it, he flees, and is followed by Aoe. The two drink together at a bar, where a down-on-his-luck drunken man loudly proclaims his New Year’s resolution to be a better man next year. Hiruta joins him, saying that he too will strive to be better going forward. It’s clear that neither is likely to live up to their claim, but as the band begins playing Auld Lang Syne, we see a series of shots of the other patrons, looking downtrodden and introspective, and it’s like we’re peeking into a window on their own lives, knowing nothing about them except their disappointment in themselves, and how desperately they want to be better.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/uwwf5h/watching_almost_every_kurosawa_film_in_order_part/
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