Seven Samurai (1954)
a film by Akira Kurosawa
The Seven Samurai is a great combination of epic and visual lyricism. It is the kind of movie that makes kids want to be samurai and practice their sword moves and it can at the same time inspire the most elaborate speeches about the aesthetics and symbolism of Japanese cinema. This film is both a great movie and an iconic piece, it is one of those movies from which others have found inspiration and rich ideas.
A village of farmers is terrorized by a gang of bandits and in despair they look for the help of a group of samurai to defend them offering nothing but food to pay for their services. That is the premise of this story in which Kurosawa explores the nature of society, the meaning of justice and the role of the individual constrained by the circumstances of its time. Using the elements of the samurai movies and introducing the elements of what will become the Western, this movie manages to address these deep and interesting topics with great care for the visual aesthetics and a strong narrative power.
The images in this film are powerful and evocative: bandits riding towards the town blighting the life of the peasants, peasants packed together unable of fighting back the dark destiny of their village, an archer points under the rain reaching the highest epic note on the climax of the movie. The composition of the images is rich and multi-layered: the is always something going on in the foreground and in the background and this simultaneity is also used in the narrative to drive the rhythm of the story, a trick that has been used again and again but seen in this movie feels like seeing an original Dali after knowing it only through gift-shop postcards.
It doesn't get anymore epic than in this movie. The action elements of this movie are smart and make the story really enjoyable and seed the ideas that lay underneath the wonderful surface of this movie. There is action, there are cool moves, great sequences, drama and humor and in the end there is the desolation of the samurai and the peasants that linger.
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