Sansho the Bailiff
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| Sansho the Bailiff | |
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| Directed by | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| Produced by | Masaichi Nagata |
| Written by | Fuji Yahiro Yoshikata Yoda Ogai Mori (story) |
| Starring | Kinuyo Tanaka Yoshiaki Hanayagi Kyōko Kagawa Eitarō Shindō |
| Cinematography | Kazuo Miyagawa |
| Distributed by | Daiei |
| Release date(s) | March 31, 1954 |
| Running time | 120 minutes |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Sansho the Bailiff (Japanese: |山椒大夫|Sanshō Dayū) is a 1954 film by Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi. Based on a short story of the same name by Mori Ogai, it tells the story of two aristocratic children sold into slavery. It is often considered one of Mizoguchi's finest films, along with Ugetsu and The Life of Oharu. It bears his trademark interest in freedom, poverty and woman's place in society, and features beautiful images and long and complicated shots. The director of photography for this film was Mizoguchi's collaborator regular Kazuo Miyagawa.
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[edit] Synopsis
Sansho the Bailiff is a jidai-geki, or historical film, set in the Heian period of feudal Japan. A virtuous official is banished by a cruel governor to a far-off province. His wife and children follow him, but are separated during the long journey. The children, brother and sister, are sold by slave traders to a manorial estate in which slave workers are brutalized as they work under horrific conditions and are punished when they try to escape. The estate is administrated by the eponymous Sansho, a bailiff or steward.
The children, Anju and Zushio, grow up to maturity in the slave camp. Anju still believes in the teachings of her father, who advocated treating others with humanity, but Zushio has repressed his humanity, becoming one of the overseers who punishes other slaves, in the belief that this is the only way to survive. However, when he hears from another slave that his mother may still be alive and a courtesan, he uses his position to escape from the camp. His sister, left behind, commits suicide.
Zushio ends up becoming a powerful governor. He returns to the slave camp and frees the slaves, defeating Sansho the bailiff. He then tracks down his mother, who he finds on a beach, a broken woman, and the film ends with their poignant restoration.
[edit] Responses
Sansho was the last of Mizoguchi's films to win an award at the Venice Film Festival, which brought him to the attention of Western critics and film-makers. 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."[1]
[edit] DVD
Sansho was unavailable on DVD in the English-speaking world for many years, but in 2007, it was released in The Criterion Collection in Region 1, while Masters of Cinema released it in Region 2 under the title Sansho Dayu in a double DVD twinpack with Gion Bayashi.
[edit] Cast
Kinuyo Tanaka - Tamaki
Kyoko Kagawa - Anju
Eitaro Shindo - Sansho
Yoshiaki Hanayagi - Zushio
Ichiro Sugai - Minister of Justice
Ken Mitsuda - Prime Minister Morozane Fujiwara
Masahiko Tsugawa - Zushio as a Boy
Masao Shimizu - Masauji Taira
Chieko Naniwa - Ubatake
Kikue Mori - Priestess
Akitake Kono - Taro
Ryosuke Kagawa - Ritsushi Kumotake
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- MoC Series page and QuickTime trailer
- The Lessons of Sansho essay by Mark Le Fanu
- Sansho the Bailiff at Rotten Tomatoes
- DVD review of Sansho the Bailiff
- Sansho the Bailiff at Allmovie
- Sansho the Bailiff at the Internet Movie Database
- Sansho the Bailiff (Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database
- Two videos of Sansho the Bailiff
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