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Sansho the Bailiff
山椒大夫
El Intendente
Sansho
L'intendant Sansho
Intendente Sansho
Epistatis Sansh
山椒大夫
Lääninherra Sansho
O Intendente Sansho
Legend of Bailiff Sansho
Epistatis Sansho
Sansho Dayu - Ein
Leben ohne
Freiheit
Director:
Kenji Mizoguchi / 溝口 健二
Year: 1954
Duration: 124 min
The Sansho screenplay was written by
Fuji Yahiro and was adapted from the legend and a
1915 short story, "Sansho the
Steward," by
Ogai Mori. Reputedly, Mizoguchi wanted Sansho to more closely follow the titular character, rather than the brother and sister who actually dominate the film. And while that would have been a more daring choice — the equivalent of focusing on the
Big Bad Wolf rather than
Little Red Riding Hood — the
Daiei Studio's insistence on exploring the brother and sister tale of Zushio (Masahiko
Kato) and
Anju (
Keiko Enami) allowed Mizoguchi to add layers of psychological depth and realism to what had always been little more than a
Japanese fairy tale. That said, the screenplay is outstanding — even if a bit depressing. It reminded me, in its unending emotional declension, of
Theo Angelopoulos's
Trilogy:
The Weeping Meadow.
The narrative is set in about the 10th or
11th century (its dates are never specified), and is not that complex, but how it is visually portrayed adds much depth to the spare tale.
Sansho opens with the siblings in flight with their mother,
Tamaki (
Kinuyo Tanaka), and an elderly servant, Ubatake (Chieko Naniwa), after six years in exile from the province of Mutsu, once governed by their father,
Taira Masauji (
Masao Shimizu). He was deposed because he opposed the way his peasants were being treated. The tale veers between the present flight of the family and six years earlier, when the father bestowed upon Zushio a family heirloom, a statuette of Kwannon, the
Goddess of Mercy, and this advice: '
Without mercy, man is like a beast. Even if you are hard on yourself, be merciful to others
. Men are created equal.
Everyone is entitled to their happiness.'
The family is then offered refuge from a night in the cold — filled with bandits and slave traders — by a
Shinto priestess (Kikue
Mori). At first, it seems that the priestess is an angel of mercy, even offering the family a trip on a boat to visit their exiled patriarch.
Instead, she betrays them to boatsmen who are slavers — the mother ends up on the boat, and becomes a courtesan on
Sado Island, while the children, on another boat, are sold as slaves on Sansho the Bailiff's manor.
The old servant lady is knocked overboard and drowns. While that is a minor moment, it does highlight one of Mizoguchi's techniques. He fades away from the old lady just before she drowns.
It's as if he has no interest in endings, only the means to them.
Bad critics often make a critical misinterpretation of Sansho the Bailiff at this moment. When we are finally introduced to Sansho (Shindô Eitarô) we see he is clearly cruel and abusive — an
Oriental Simon Legree, but we also see him as a servile functionary to his boss, the
Minister of the Right, the real owner of the property. Sansho, after all, is just a bailiff for the big man. Yet, many critics see him as both the ultimate evil in the film and as a corrupt character.
The latter interpretation can be taken as true in the sense that Sansho is ethically bankrupt on a personal level, but most critics do not use the word in that regard.
Rather, they use it to imply he is an anomaly in the system. Yet, this is clearly not true. Sansho is just doing his job, one which allows him to indulge his sadism — it is the system itself that is corrupt.
Sansho, in fact, is such an efficient master of the manor that the
Minister sends other government officials to see how he runs things so that his methods can be exported to other slave manors in the
Empire. Thus, against the backdrop of the feudal system, Sansho is not corrupt — he's the embodiment of merciless capital efficiency. He is an early forerunner to the faceless 'company man.'
(
http://www.altfg.com/blog/film-reviews/sansho-the-bailiff-by-kenji-mizoguchi/)
- published: 14 May 2014
- views: 44873