Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low
“High and Low” is a stark departure from Kurosawa’s typical genre.
Akira Kurosawa has quickly crept his way into my list of favourite directors. He is incredibly influential and ahead of his time in many regards and one of my favourite things about loving a director who I know won’t make any more films is that I have all the time in the world to watch them. He has an archive of masterpieces just waiting there for me to discover and so far High and Low is my favourite one.
Kurosawa is typically recognised for his samurai films. He is one of the most famous directors of the samurai and his hits like the Hidden Fortress, Rashomon and The Seven Samurai transcended international barriers and heavily influenced a lot of what American Hollywood made in the 60s and 70s. However High and Low is a stark departure from Kurosawa’s typical genre…it’s a crime drama. It’s the story of a rich businessman whose life is thrown into turmoil when one of his worker’s sons is kidnapped and the kidnapper demands he pay the ransom.
The first half of this film is spectacular. It’s deeply captivating which is a surprise since all it is, is the detectives listing off clues for an hour. However, the slow drip-feeding of different clues into the crime and its motives were somehow extremely tense and enthralling because, as it went on, more and more was revealed about our characters, especially Mifune’s character Gondo. We see him go through a full character arc in the first hour of this film. He starts as a money and pride driven businessman and by the end of the act, he sacrifices all of this to save his worker's child, all with the knowledge that this decision could end his career.
The camerawork and blocking throughout the film is incredible but my favourite example of this is all the scenes with Gondo. in the beginning section of the film Gondo is separated from everyone. He thinks his wife doesn’t understand his business, His workers don’t understand and even his business peers don’t understand him because they want to kick him out of the company. This isolation is shown through the camerawork as Kurosawa cleverly frames scenes with intentional negative space that shows the disconnect between characters. For example, the argument between Gondo and his wife is shot in a way that places a lot of space between the two of them but also a lot of space between them and the detectives. This shows the disconnect between the couple but also the disconnect between the detectives and the Gondo’s because of their class differences. The quarrels of the rich mean nothing to them because they all think differently. The blocking in this first act perfectly visualises Gondo’s arc.
In the beginning, though he distances himself, he is still central. He is the man with the power and everything revolves around him. However as the stressful situation continues You’ll notice Kurosawa place him away from the centre, often to the side or corner of a frame. The situation is so hard on him that he eventually wants nothing to do with it. He wants to be as far from it as possible so he isn’t to blame for its outcome. However, as the film progresses you do notice less and less of this because of Gondo’s arc. He has sacrificed his fortune and he now faces poverty. This loss grounds and humbles him as a character and we start to see less of a disconnect between him and the detectives.
The second half of the film switches perspectives completely and we’re now taken into the perspectives of the detectives. We see things through their eyes and the film becomes a detective story. This act is much slower and less action-packed but is equally as engaging. We are given insight into the draining and mostly frivolous process of detective work and we begin to sympathise with the detectives.
In the film, the detectives act as the moral neutral. They don’t judge or sympathise, instead they just focus on the facts and try to do their job. The dedication to justice that we see in this act allows the audience to connect and root for the detectives because we get to see how hard they work to do what’s right. This connection is vital as they’re the heroes of the next act and we are now made to root for them.
The final act finally introduces us to our villain. We follow him through the detectives and we are introduced to his world which is the opposite of Gondo’s. While Gondo lives in luxurious heaven, The kidnapper lives in a dingy studio apartment surrounded by drugs and poverty. Kurosawa shows us the vast difference between the two classes in this section through a lot of the visuals, which are a lot dirtier and even at times scary. My problem with this section of the film is that though we follow our kidnapper I never ever felt like we truly understand why he did it. He himself says it’s all because of his jealously of Gondo but to me that motive wasn’t satisfying enough.
Though in the end, I do love the three different perspectives, classes, and stories Kurosawa was able to tell in this film. He almost perfectly crafted a story unlike any other, that masterfully utilises the three-act structure and turns it into a way of telling 3 different films in one whilst also having all of these three different stories converge together so well in the end. The kidnapper’s motives were my only gripe with the film however It didn’t take anything away from my enjoyment of the film so I don’t think it’s enough to mark this down. This is a five-star film to me that I loved every second of it. I am so excited to carry on my journey through Kurosawa’s work and even more excited to look into his deviations from his typical style like this one.
