Japan 134m, Colour
Director: Akira Kurosawa; Cast: Tatsuo Matsumura, Kyōko Kagawa, Hisashi Igawa, George Tokoro
Madadayo is a joyous last film in the career of Akira Kurosawa. It recounts the celebration of the life of Hyakken Uchida – a popular writer and educator whose autobiographical writings formed the basis for this film. It is also a fitting farewell for Kurosawa the film maker, and serves as a beautiful bookend to his own illustrious career which had a similar impact on students and admirers of his thirty films. In Madadayo, Kurosawa returned to the familiar setting of post-war Japan which was the basis for much of his earliest productions. In doing so, he also combined many of the best aspects of these earlier works, including a thoughtful and meticulous screenplay and beautiful photography with his more recently developed application of colour and surreal imagery to produce one of the kindest and most introspective films of his career (Klaus Ming January 2011).
So, having seen all of his films, what’s your favorite? Was Dreams (1990) in the collection? I remember really liking one of the three or so short films that make up the collection…
While I have seen and reviewed all 25 films in the Criterion AK100 box set, there are five films left (which were not included in the Criterion Collection). Dreams is one of the five not included.
I have added Kurosawa to my Directors page and have included the five missing films.
https://klausming.wordpress.com/directors/
I`m going to need few weeks to reflect on the films i`ve seen, and to track down and watch the remaining features before putting together a final article on the experience.
I probably enjoyed Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962) the most, but Ikiru (1952) has so far left the most lasting impression.
I’ve seen 18 of Kurosawa’s films and my favorite is Yojimbo. His fans like it, but I don’t often run into people who consider it their favorite. He made so many great films, but the one I watch again and again is Yojimbo. IT ROXX!!
I was looking forward to knowing what you thought of his peculiar Dersu Uzala… But it’s not in the set….
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071411/
I`ll probably get around to it sooner than later 🙂