Criterion Corner--High and Low

          Akira Kurosawa has created some great Japanese films that have that Western cinema culture appeal to them, like “Rashomon”, “Yojimbo”, and “Seven Samurai”, which was later turned into a western called “The Magnificent Seven”.  His black and white camera shots have purpose and poetry, and the stories are filled with intense moments that deeply focus on character.

His 1963 film “High and Low” is no exception.  With opening music reminiscent of a horror movie or more prevalent to the time, like a “Twilight Zone” episode, the film starts off in a somber mood but the intensity ramps up quick as we meet Gondo a partner with National Shoes, who is meeting with other partners and proceeds to throw them out as he plans to take over the company to make it better.  This all turns when he receives a call from a man who has kidnapped his son.  The ransom will crush Gondo financially but he does not hesitate to pay up.  Then his son walks into the room.  “Da-da-dummmm.”  It turns out the kidnapper took his son’s little friend who happens to be the son of Gondo’s driver.  Now the dilemma begins.  Does Gondo throw his family’s future away to save a child that is not his?

The first hour of the film centers on this choice, and leads to what would appear to be an inevitable conclusion.  The second hour is more akin to a crime show or film procedural.  It follows the cops as they follow the clues, some that may make you think of later American films, like a clue straight out of the 1993’s “The Fugitive”.  As well as my favorite moment which would be bad in any other movie, is when the cops literally sit in a hot room and talk about their investigation and what they’ve uncovered.  It reminded me of the long phone-call’s scene in David Fincher’s “Zodiac”.  This is how investigations were done in the old days, or at least similar to this, no internet, no C.S.I. just guys walking and talking.  It all leads to the kidnapper, who is creepy and meticulous in his own right, with sunglasses that reflect the “Low” life beneath the “High” life of Gondo and his family with their house on the hill.  The kidnapper doesn’t even speak until the closing minutes of the film which is a little haunting and heartbreaking all the same.

The one thing that kept bothering me was how everyone from the press to the police felt so sorry for the rich Mr. Gondo, it’s brought up so many times in the film, that I was wondering if Kurosawa wanted the sympathy from the audience about a self-made rich man losing his fortune, or if it was meant to be more of a Shakespearean tragedy.  Either way,  you get it by the end, and I was with the film the entire time.  If you, like me only know of the great Kurosawa and some of his samurai classic films.  Give “High and Low” a view, it belongs up there with the greats.

 

--Robert L. Castillo