Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyôko Kagawa, Eitarô Shindô, Ichirô Sugai, Masahiko Tsugawa, Masao Shimizu, Ken Mitsuda, Chieko Naniwa.

Mizoguchi’s beautiful but devastating fable (from a Mori Ôgai short story, itself based on Japanese folklore) of the banished noble family of a deceased governor being torn apart—the mother forced into prostitution, and the children being sold into slavery at the private estate of the imperious, pitiless slavemaster Sansho (Shindô). A powerful, tragic story, told through cameraman Kazuo Miyagawa’s long and elaborately flowing camera shots; wraps up with a moving finale that’s delicate and bittersweet where most other filmmakers would have overplayed the emotional impact. Rendered from an anachronistic view of idealism and humanity for its setting (11th century feudal Japan), but the transformation of young Zushio (played by Tsugawa as a child, Hanayagi as an adult) is one from a timeless, universal morality play; he will forever be haunted by his fathers words, among them: “Without mercy, man is not a human being.”

95/100