The Great Movies III

It is a film of grace, beauty, and fierce ethical debate, the story of a decision in favor of romance and against the samurai code. The plot involves the sexual convenience of the lord, who first forces the Sasahara family to accept his discarded mistress and then wants her back again. Lady Ichi (Yoko Tsukasa) was forced to become the lord's lover, bore him a son, and then in anger struck the old man, pulled his hair, and disgraced herself. The lord decrees she must be banished, and orders her to marry Yogoro (Go Kato), one of the two sons of the Sasaharas.

This does not please the family, but they obey the lord. After the marriage, Isaburo sees a way out of his unhappy subservience to his wife. He retires and names Yogoro head of the family. Yogoro explains to Ichi that his father dislikes his mother, "but has borne everything." Now Ichi will be the woman who manages the household: "You needn't hold back because of the old woman."To everyone's surprise, Ichi and Yogoro learn to love each other, and their marriage is blessed with a daughter named Tomi. When Yogoro asks his wife why she attacked the lord, she replies simply: "I felt as if a hairy worm was crawling over me."

Edicts from the lord are delivered by the steward (Shigeru Koyama). One day he arrives with news: the lord's heir has died, and the son he had by Ichi is the new heir to the throne. The steward says Ichi must leave the Sasaharas and return to the castle, for it would be improper for the heir's mother to be married to a vassal. As Ichi learns the news, we see her seated in the angle of two rice-paper walls, ominous shadows crawling behind her like insects. She refuses to return. She is supported by her husband and, unexpectedly, by her father-in-law: Isaburo calls it a "cruel injustice," and tells them he has been moved by "your tender love for each other," so unlike his own marriage. So begins the rebellion of the title: father, son, and wife refuse to obey the lord, although Isaburo's wife, Suga (Michiko Otsuka), and their other son are in favor of sending her back to the castle.

I was reading Anthony Trollope's Doctor Thorne when I saw the film, and was struck by how the two plots are similar in the way romance is opposed by a ruthless pragmatism, with social class being used to enforce what the characters should feel. The world of the samurai is far away from us, even further than Trollope's Barsetshire, but the feelings of the characters are universal and fundamental.

When we think of samurai movies, we think of swordplay, but Samurai Rebellion consists almost entirely of domestic life and diplomatic maneuvering until the film's final bloodbath. Isaburo believes he can protest the autocracy of the lord at the court of the emperor, in Edo, and the lord's steward is not eager to see this happen. A period of extraordinary negotiation opens, with bluff and counterbluff, and we see family councils as the Sasahara relatives gather to try to talk the three rebels into accepting the lord's will. Lies are told, intrigues are carried out, Lady Ichi is kidnapped, and yet true love will not be denied.

There is also a curious change in the appearance of Mifune, the most famous of all Japanese stars. In early scenes, he looks so meek, so defeated by his marriage, that we hardly recognize him. As his resolve grows, as he supports Yogoro and Ichi, his famous face seems to take form, and he looks stern and angry, like the Mifune we know.

There is a key turning point. He is walking along the brick pathways in his enclosed stone garden. As he tells Ichi he will support her, he leaves the path, and his sandals make footprints in the carefully raked sand. He has broken the rules, refused to stay between the lines, and placed his own will above that of the lord.

The director Masaki Kobayashi (1916-96) was himself a rebel. I learn from Ephraim Katz's Film Encyclopedia that Kobayashi was a pacifist during World War II. After being drafted into the army and sent to Manchuria, "in a courageous act of personal defiance, he refused promotion and remained a private for the duration."

Defiance would be a subject of his films. His 7be Human Condition (1959) is a three-part, nine-hour film about a conscientious objector who serves in Manchuria just as Kobayashi did and acts not in obedience to the emperor but out of loyalty to his men.