High and Low (1963)
QFS No. 139 - The invitation for May 8, 2024
It’s been entirely too long since we’ve selected an Akira Kurosawa film here at Quarantine Film Society. It was way back in July 2020 when we were young and terrified, but watched the masterpiece Yojimo (1961, QFS No. 13). The offending parties to this nearly four-year gap have been reassigned to new minor roles within The Society.
High and Low has been on my list for a long time and I’m a little upset I haven’t seen it yet. Several months ago, I finally saw Ikiru (1952) in the theater at the New Beverly and though it instantly became one of my favorite films, I was simultaneously upset that it had taken so long before watching such a gem.
And so, lo and behold, the New Beverly just screened High and Low to come to my rescue. I was about to select it anyway (seriously – I have notes to prove it!) and so once again the stars align. I have not seen many of Kurosawa’s non-samurai period films, so it’ll be excellent to finally get a chance to see this one.
But also, excellent to watch at home! Then join the discussion of High and Low below if you can!
High and Low (1963) Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Reactions and Analyses:
High and Low (1960) has two halves, almost two separate movies. This has long been discussed over the years and by our QFS discussion tackled this as well. But one of our members, a cinematographer, picked up on something I hadn’t noticed – a slight but deliberate change in camera use between the halves.
The first half deals with the kidnapping of Shinichi (Masahiko Shimazu), mistaken for the wealthy child of Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), and Gondo’s decision whether or not to pay a huge sum to this mysterious kidnapper. Shinichi is Aoki’s son, played with excruciating grief and torment by Yutaka Sada. This half of the film takes place all in Gondo’s home, with everyone awaiting the kidnapper’s next call and us as the audience, trying to determine what Gondo will decide.
The first half of High and Low (1963) showcases director Akira Kurosawa’s mastery of staging - wide frames and compositions with deliberate camera moves when necessary, and takes place entirely in the Gondos’ home. Body language becomes an important aspect of the storytelling when using wide frames.
The camerawork in the first half is composed as if on a stage, with actors blocked in ways where sometimes someone’s back is to us, but their body language speaks volumes. The camera moves, when they happen, are also steady, composed, operated on a gear head for smooth and precise movements.
The second half – the camera is freed. We’re out in the world, on the case, trying to find the kidnapper and also Gondo’s money. It’s likely Kurosawa had seen many of the films of the burgeoning French New Wave movement where the camera is liberated from the tripod and thrust into the dirty, complex world. Kurosawa’s version is still precise and deliberate, but there’s a greater urgency and rapid movement that evokes a handheld style, if not deliberately handheld.
Kurosawa throws the camera into the world as the hunt for the kidnappers unfolds. The camera, too, is free - some handheld, moving camera that hand off from one detective to another in pursuit.
High and Low becomes an elevated police procedural.
Detectives stuck watching from the car as the suspect encounters Mr. Gondo in person.
Following the suspect through the seedy underbelly of Yokohama. The heroin den sequence evokes the imagery now found in modern post-apocalyptic movies and dramas.
These two styles mimic the change in style, change in movie, change in tone and the change in focus. The drama in the first half of the film is almost entirely internal, just as it is internal in this house. It’s Gondo’s furrowed self-exploration of what to do, whether to give in to the demands and destroy the career and life he’s built for one his personal staff members. It’s the visible anguish on Aoki’s face, at first pleading and then prepared to sacrifice his son in order to save his boss’s livelihood (and, also, his own). There’s his wife Reiko (Kyoko Kagawa) who acts as the moral compass, pleading with Gondo to save the child, that she doesn’t need this home and this wealth.
Reiko pleads with Gondo, and she’s ultimately proved right - even though it costs them both in the end.
But is that true? Gondo reminds her that she was born into wealth and has never had to live as he had to growing up so she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Which then in turn a revelation – that Gondo got a boost early in his career from a dowry from Reiko’s wealthy family.
All of these internal struggles mirror the setting and pace and blocking of the first half perfectly. Kurosawa exhibits his mastery of composition, placing some people in the frame looking towards us and others looking away to enhance their position. Or to have a small sliver of light come through the curtains to bring our focus to a certain place. Kurosawa places Gondo in foreground on the phone, for example, when in the background Aoki anguishes alone and small in the frame. Another moment, when Aoki pleads with Gondo, the two are on opposite sides of the frame – Gondo barely able to look at him.
Gondo, tormented, only his face is in darkness in this shot - a way to use light to tell the story of an internal struggle.
This deliberate staging allows Kurosawa to play with power dynamics – who is big in the frame, who is small? Who is forced at the edge and who is covered in darkness. It’s brilliant and textbook and requires care to execute. (Of course it doesn’t hurt to have the extraordinary Mifune as one of your chess pieces to play on the board.)
Gondo deciding not to pay the ransom. Body language, choice of staging, attention still brought to the center. Mastery in blocking for the camera.
High and Low goes from a story about executive-level business intrigue, to a hostage thriller, to a story exploring social dynamics and issues of wealth, power and poverty before becoming a detective and police procedural with stunning set pieces including the seedy underbelly of 1960s Yokohama.
Kurosawa somehow pulls all of this off without any sense of whiplash or asymmetry. The master clearly at the top of his game is able to balance all of these elements in just about the most seamless way a bifurcated story could be crafted. And he doesn’t abandon elements from first half into the second half – we are reminded of Gondo’s sacrifice when later we see him mowing the lawn. Or when Aoki takes Shinichi back on the path to find the kidnappers’ lair – the detectives catch up with him and Aoki reveals that Gondo told him they won’t need to drive to Gondo’s shoe factory any more, having been forced out as they all knew he would be. We are given glimpses into Gondo’s life changing, even though he barely appears in the second half and we’re more interested in hunt and pursuit of the wrongdoers.
Kurosawa uses this efficiency in his story telling throughout. For example, the bald, sweaty detective Bos’n Taguchi (Kenjiro Ishiyama) – he’s the detective who is rough around the edges but a joking, committed bloodhound. But he’s on the screen so little, how do we know that? Just in a few words, we learn he disdains the wealthy so when Gondo sacrifices we see Bos’n’s admiration. And in behavior – he’s always sweaty and rubbing his head – Kurosawa is a master of tagging a character with a physical tic (see Mifune as “Sanjuro” with the shoulder twitch in Yojimbo, 1961 QFS No. 13). So when this hardened detective breaks down when Aoki and Shinichi reunite, we understand this man and he, in some ways, is a stand in for us as the audience. It’s incredibly moving.
That scene in particular contains another example of Kurosawa’s brilliance. The detectives are in the foreground, their backs to the camera as Aoki runs full speed away from us, towards Shinichi in the distance who runs as well. But the camera stays with the detectives – we see Bos’n holding back tears as he turns towards profile, and Chief Detective Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai) gives the command that kicks off the second half: “For Mr. Gondo’s sake, be bloodhounds!”
Father and son reunited and moments before Detective Tokura says “For Mr. Gondo’s sake, be bloodhounds!”
And so the second half they’re off, trying to get the kidnapper and recover Gondo’s money.
There are so many points of entry into this film that it’s almost overwhelming to analyze. The bullet train sequence is a masterpiece in suspense. Gondo’s secretary Kwanishi (Tatsuya Mihashi) and his double cross that backfires give us a sense that Gondo is right that his stature is perilous – and Reiko is right ultimately that Gondo’s sacrifice is the correct action ultimately. We also see Kurosawa’s version of a zombie apocalypse film as we explore a heroin den – dreary, seemingly dangerous, the shuffling feet of the addicted clinking on unseen glass vials and bottles. And the plot itself, the suspense and the central question of who is the kidnapper?
He must be the kidnapper! Who else would wear mirrored glasses indoors?!
Several of the QFS discussion members, myself included, were certain that the other board members of the National Shoe Company arranged for this attempted kidnapping of Gondo’s son. The beginning of the film sets up that premise, which is a great narrative device to send us down that path. But ultimately, it’s a psychopath (but is he a psychopath?), a poor medical intern who looks up at Gondos’ castle above his poor slum. The explanation is that it drove him crazy to see that every day, looking down on them, and that he wanted to teach the man a lesson.
This final scene in the prison between Gondo and Takeuchi (Tsutomu Yamazaki in the only scene where he speaks) gives the kidnapper a chance to explain to Gondo and to us the why. I asked our group the question is this scene necessary. Without it, the scene ends with Mr. and Mrs. Gondo in their emptying house, the auctioneers measuring the furniture for their upcoming auction. For me, that felt like the appropriate conclusion to Gondo’s story and several felt similarly.
However, we would be left wondering why and missing out on any sort of explanation. And though Taekuchi’s motives felt thin – how could he be driven so far when there are probably a couple thousand people in the same situation who saw that same house and lived all around him – who didn’t think kidnap and murder were the solutions. So we’re left with psychosis, something that’s born out by the final images of the film as he’s dragged away, the security gate comes down, and Gondo’s image reflected in the mirror of both lives forever torn.
Gondo meets the kidnapper face-to-face a second time.
The final image in the movie in a scene that arguably did not have to be in the film. Up for debate!
While I personally would have preferred a stronger rationale for the film’s antagonist, this is a minor story objection to what is one of the greatest films by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Much of Kurosawa’s work should be essential viewing for filmmakers, but High and Low contains it all – blocking, camerawork, pacing, framing, character development, performance, to name a few. It’s clear to me now that the master’s masterclass for all of us is High and Low.
