Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 5-February-06
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Stray Dog (1949)

Make no bones about it: Stray Dog is a classy puppy. Akira Kurosawa's tale of cops and robbers inspires thought about life's complexity and admiration for how well they used to make 'em. Starring Toshiro Mifune (Japan's answer to Montgomery Clift), the film follows a rookie policeman whose Colt pistol is stolen on a crowded city bus. Awash in shame, this cop, Murakami, becomes obsessed with retrieving the gun and arresting the man who carries it, and his subsequent foray into the underworld challenges the beliefs that define him.

Unlike today's glorifiers of vulgarity and violence, Kurosawa lays out a labyrinthine criminal world that's as subtle as it is unsettling; his interest lies in the nuance of human collision instead of the noise it makes. Murakami meets a variety of interesting people on his quest, from a pickpocket who appreciates the stars, to an angry chorus girl with a romantic streak, to the disturbed young man who emerges as his prey (and, in a way, his doppelgänger). Each triggers him to reveal a bit of himself, and none more so than his older colleagues at the station. In advising him not to take the loss of the Colt so personally, they highlight his idealism as well as his inexperience. This former quality becomes more pronounced after he partners with an expert detective (Takashi Shimura) who preserves a paternal twinkle even as he recommends a hardened heart. By contrasting these characters the movie asks what circumstances turn a man into a stray dog — mistrustful, outcast, and desperate — and what forces are capable of keeping him from that path.

These questions have a universal appeal, and indeed one surprising impression of Stray Dog is how accessible its 1940s Tokyo looks to modern American eyes. (The scenes and characters could just as easily be in New York in some later decade.) However, I get the sense that the story might be closely associated with its context. Murakami is distraught to learn that the wielder of his gun is a veteran like himself and roughly the same age. Could the unprecedented horror of the atom bomb mean that they suffered the loss of their ideals with more shock than preceding generations? Did the Japanese notions of honor represented by Murakami's shame become insupportable with the advent of modernity? And if it's true that a man's response to bad luck defines him, as Murakami's superior suggests, can the same be said of a country as a whole? Kurosawa invokes such musings as he maintains the tension of a thriller, and the result is roundly satisfying. Taking all his classics into account, Stray Dog still qualifies for best in show.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.