#13 - Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi)

More goodies from the Mizo retro at the AFI. Although a DVD is (finally!) arriving next month, I absolutely had to see this on the big screen. Unfortunately, this meant seeing in on 4 hours of sleep with no time to make a run to the concession stand beforehand to load up on caffeine. Just barely getting in on time (the "Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi" credit was onscreen when I took my seat) meant I had to sit in the very front of the theater (good showing by the way, kudos DC-area cinema patrons) with my head tilted all the way up, in the position one assumes when trying to sleep in a car, or a cinema.

Yup, I missed a great deal of the final act. I saw the final reunion with Zushio and his mother but I did not see him discover the fates of his father and sister. Fuck spoiler tags, yo. Thank God I'll be able to watch this again on DVD in a month to tie up loose ends.

Of course, what I saw (and what I saw was at least 3/4 of the two-hour movie) was phenomenal. Mizoguchi is definitely one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. I love how his postwar films deftly address contemporary social issues in a jidai-geki setting. Both Sansho and Ugetsu deal with the horrors of war and fascism and Oharu showed how women are still degraded and mistreated. It'll be interesting to see Street of Shame later this week (oh, I hope I don't have to work) to see how Mizo crafts a contemporary film. Too bad A Geisha isn't being shown, that's one I want to see soon too. Ah well, we have the Masters of Cinema Mizoguchi box and a Criterion Eclipse box coming soon so 2007 looks to finally be the year Kenji Mizoguchi gets his due on DVD.

new #100: The Terminator (honest, I've only seen T2!)