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Sansho the Bailiff (???? Sansh? Day?) (known by its Japanese title in the United Kingdom and Ireland) is a 1954 Japanese period film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Based on a short story of the same name by Mori ?gai, which in turn was based on a legendary folklore, it follows two aristocratic children who are sold into slavery.
Sansho the Bailiff | |
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Japanese theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Kenji Mizoguchi |
Produced by | Masaichi Nagata |
Screenplay by | Fuji Yahiro Yoshikata Yoda |
Based on | "Sansho the Bailiff" by Mori ?gai |
Starring | Kinuyo Tanaka Yoshiaki Hanayagi Ky?ko Kagawa Eitar? Shind? |
Music by | Fumio Hayasaka Tamekichi Mochizuki Kinshichi Kodera |
Cinematography | Kazuo Miyagawa |
Edited by | Mitsuzo Miyata |
Distributed by | Daiei Film |
Release date |
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Running time | 124 minutes |
Country | Japan |
Language | Japanese |
Sansho the Bailiff bears many of Mizoguchi's hallmarks, such as portrayals of poverty, a critical view of the place of women in contemporary Japan, and elaborately choreographed long shots – the director of photography for which was Kazuo Miyagawa, Mizoguchi's regular collaborator. Today, the film is often ranked alongside Ugetsu (1953) as one of Mizoguchi's finest works.
Screenplay
Sansho the Bailiff is a jidai-geki, or historical film, set in the Heian period of feudal Japan. A virtuous governor is banished by a feudal lord to a far-off province. His wife and children are sent to live with her brother. Several years later, the wife, Tamaki (Kinuyo Tanaka), and children, Zushi? and Anju, journey to his exiled land, but are tricked on the journey by a treacherous priestess. The mother is sold into prostitution in Sado and the children are sold by slave traders to a manorial estate in which slaves are brutalized, working under horrific conditions and branded when they try to escape. The estate, protected under the Minister of the Right, is administered by the eponymous Sansh? (Eitar? Shind?), a bailiff (or steward). Sansh?'s son Tar? (Akitake K?no), the second-in-charge, is a much more humane master, and he convinces the two they must survive in the manor before they can escape to find their mother.
The children grow to young adulthood at the slave camp. Anju (Ky?ko Kagawa) still believes in the teachings of her father, which advocate treating others with humanity, but Zushi? (Yoshiaki Hanayagi) has repressed his humanity, becoming one of the overseers who punishes other slaves, in the belief that this is the only way to survive. Anju hears a song from a new slave girl from Sado which mentions her and her brother in the lyrics. This leads her to believe their mother is still alive. She tries to convince Zushi? to escape, but he refuses, citing the difficulty and their lack of money.
Zushi? is ordered to take Namiji, an older woman, out of the slave camp to be left to die in the wilderness due to her sickness. Anju accompanies them, and while they break branches to provide covering for the dying woman they recall their earlier childhood memories. At this point Zushi? changes his mind and asks Anju to escape with him to find their mother. Anju asks him to take Namiji with him, convincing her brother she will stay behind to distract the guards. Zushi? promises to return for Anju. However, after Zushi?'s escape, Anju commits suicide by walking into a lake, drowning herself so that she will not be tortured and forced to reveal her brother's whereabouts.
After Zushi? escapes in the wilderness, he finds his old mentor, Tar? – Sansh?'s son – at an Imperial temple. Zushi? asks Tar? to take care of Namiji, who is recovering after being given medicine, so that he can go to Kyoto to appeal to the Chief Advisor on the appalling conditions of slaves. The Head Priest writes a letter for him as proof of who he is. Although initially refusing to see him, the Chief Advisor realizes the truth after seeing a statuette of Kannon from Zushi?. He then tells Zushi? that his exiled father died the year before and offers Zushi? the post of the governor of Tango, the very province where Sansho's manor is situated in.
As Governor of Tango, the first thing Zushi? does is to order an edict forbidding slavery both on public and private grounds. No one believes he can do this, since Governors have no command over private grounds; although Sansh? offers initial resistance (having his men destroy the signs which state the edict), Zushi? orders him and his men arrested, thus freeing the slaves. When he looks for Anju among Sansh?'s slaves, he finds out his sister has sacrificed herself for his freedom. The manor is burned down by the ex-slaves, while Sansh? and his family are exiled. Zushi? resigns immediately afterwards, stating that he had done exactly what he had intended to do.
Zushi? leaves for Sado where he searches for his aged mother, whom he believes is still a courtesan. After hearing a man state that she has died in a tsunami, he goes to the beach she is supposed to have died on. He finds a nearly blind, decrepit old woman sitting on the beach singing the same song he heard years before. Realizing she is his mother, he reveals his identity to her, but Tamaki assumes he is a trickster until he gives her their statuette. Zushi? tells her both Anju and their father have died, and apologizes for not coming for her in the pomp of his governor's post. Instead he followed his father's proverb and chose mercy toward others by freeing the slaves held by Sansh?. He tells his mother he has been true to his father's teachings, which she acknowledges poignantly.
- Kinuyo Tanaka – Tamaki
- Ky?ko Kagawa – Anju
- Eitar? Shind? – Sansh?
- Yoshiaki Hanayagi – Zushi?
- Ichir? Sugai – Minister of Justice
- Ken Mitsuda – Chief Advisor to the Emperor Morozane Fujiwara
- Masahiko Tsugawa – Zushi? as a Boy
- Masao Shimizu – Masauji Taira
- Chieko Naniwa – Ubatake
- Kikue Mori – Priestess
- Akitake K?no – Tar?
- Ry?suke Kagawa – Ritsushi Kumotake
Sansho won the Silver Lion for best direction in the 15th Venice International Film Festival, which once again brought Mizoguchi to the attention of Western critics and film-makers, after The Life of Oharu (International Award, 1952) and Ugetsu (Silver Lion, 1953). It is greatly revered by many critics; The New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane wrote in his September, 2006 profile on Mizoguchi, "I have seen Sansho only once, a decade ago, emerging from the cinema a broken man but calm in my conviction that I had never seen anything better; I have not dared watch it again, reluctant to ruin the spell, but also because the human heart was not designed to weather such an ordeal." Writing for RogerEbert.com, Jim Emerson extolled the movie: "I don't believe there's ever been a greater motion picture in any language. This one sees life and memory as a creek flowing into a lake out into a river and to the sea."
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls, Sansho the Bailiff came in at 59th in the critics' poll, with 25 critics having voted for the film.
In 1990 producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau (Streamers, The Thin Red Line) commissioned director Terrence Malick to write a stage play based on Sansho the Bailiff. A private workshop of the play was undertaken in fall 1993 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It was directed by Andrzej Wajda with sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, lighting by Jennifer Tipton, sound by Hans Peter Kuhn, choreography by Suzushi Hanayagi, and a large all-Asian cast, including Bai Ling. A smaller-scale workshop was mounted by Geisler-Roberdeau under Malick's own direction in Los Angeles in spring 1994. Plans to produce the play on Broadway were postponed indefinitely.
It was adapted into the anime film Anju and Zushiomaru, bearing same name as the legend in 1961 produced by Toei, directed by Yabushita Taiji. It featured many supernatural anthmorphic elements such as talking animals like Toei's other anime movies of that time.
Home media
Sansho was unavailable on DVD in the English-speaking world until 2007, when it was released by The Criterion Collection in Region 1, while the Masters of Cinema released it in Region 2 under the title Sansh? Day? in a double DVD twinpack with Gion Bayashi. Masters of Cinema re-released the single film in Blu-ray and DVD in a Dual Format combo in April 2012.