Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 13-March-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Red Beard (1965)

Akira Kurosawa's Red Beard fits my definition of a "feel-good" movie. Not in the standard sense of being vacuous and light-hearted, but in the sense that it left me more hopeful about the world than I was before I watched it. Although the plot touches upon alcoholism, suicide, rape, child abuse, and prostitution, the movie offers an antidote to society's horrors.

The focal point of these considerations is a medical clinic in a Japanese town. (The movie takes place towards the end of the shogun era in the nineteenth century.) We gain entry to the clinic by accompanying a hotshot young doctor, Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama), who arrives to make a brief inspection and discovers that he is meant to stay. The clinic does not accord with his high self-opinion and expectations, so he sets out to make himself obnoxious and force the physician in charge to dismiss him.

The physician in charge, however, is as stubborn as a mule and wouldn't dream of letting the young man off so easily. He is called "Red Beard" because of the highlights in his facial hair and, as played by the great Toshiro Mifune, looks like a patriarch from an epic past. Like the doctor in Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948), Red Beard considers physical illness a manifestation of social disease, particularly poverty. He aims to treat both the symptom and the cause. While not the warmest guy in the world, he is one of the most dedicated. He is the perfect mentor for Yasumoto even if the young man doesn't recognize this at first.

Yasumoto's transformation occurs through encounters with patients and other visitors to the clinic. Early on he is nearly murdered by an emotionally disturbed woman who is kept locked up on the clinic grounds. Later, he begins to regard altruism as a calling when he assumes the care of a 12-year-old girl (Terumi Niki) who has never been taught to regard people as kind or trustworthy. (Their meeting comes about after the movie's one gratuitous part in which Red Beard knocks the stuffing out of 10 or so whorehouse thugs. As if it weren't already plain that he's the coolest guy in the world!) The scenes between Yasumoto and the girl are among the most moving moments on film. With Red Beard's help, he reaches beyond her defenses as if taming a wild animal. She then turns around and befriends a penniless boy, proving that kindness received becomes kindness given.

One of the notable themes of the movie is that guilt — the feeling of having done too little to merit contentment or atone for past sins — is a powerful motivation for good. Both Red Beard and Yasumoto make comments to this effect about themselves, and the idea is examined through a story within the story. One of the clinic's patients, who is considered a saint by his neighbors, makes a death-bed confession that unspools as an artful flashback. It's a tragic love story, full of emotion and drama, and the weight of its unhappy ending is what caused the man to toil for others the rest of his life. Whether prompted by guilt or no, great toil is needed if one sets oneself against the harshness of the world. Red Beard celebrates those who take this task on their shoulders.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.