Story Movie
After a tremendous victory on the battlefield, lost in a dense forest, Lords Washizu and Miki meet a mysterious prophetic old woman who foretells a great future for Washizu, and an even greater one for Miki's descendants. Once out of the forest, they do indeed receive a summons and honorable appointments from the emperor. Wasizu, instigated by his ambitious wife, plans to go beyond the old sorceress' predictions.
Review 4K Movie
Knowledge of the future inevitably changes people's lives. A person who has learned his future, consciously or unconsciously brings it closer, vainly trying to prove to himself and everyone around him that fate has no control over him and his life is his own creation. The hero of one of Wilde's stories, Lord Arthur Seville, learned that one day he will commit murder - and killed a complete stranger just so that he would not be tormented by the expectation of “imminent”. In Kurosawa's A Throne in Blood, a paraphrase of Shakespeare's Macbeth, a half-fulfilled prediction is a double-edged blade that can be used to achieve great victories, but only at the risk of one's own life.
After a triumphant victory, two warlords go to report to their lord and meet a strange old woman on the way - in a forest of notoriety - who foretells one of them an imminent success: he will be granted an estate for his excellent service, and then he will become the master of his lord's castle. Having grinned at this prophecy with true samurai restraint, the warriors reach the castle, where the lord indeed rewards the distinguished man with an estate.
And you can say for as long as you like that it is foolish and even somehow unworthy to believe in soothsayers - part of the predictions came true almost instantly, making you constantly return to the thoughts that the rest is possible. These reflections torment the soul and mind, not giving a moment's peace and making me doubt my nearest and dearest and even myself. The inner voice tirelessly reminds of the brilliant prospects of the owner of the castle, an influential and independent man. The effect is only intensified when the inner voice is joined by the voice of his wife, who keeps telling him that the prediction is very, very plausible. It is only necessary to help fate a little, to push the development of events in the right direction - and everything will come true, the most daring dreams will come true. And is it so irreparably terrible that for the sake of it you have to betray yourself and get soaked in blood? Convincing himself that he is creating his own destiny, and not just going on the prediction of a crazy old woman, the hero multiplies evil and suffering around him and this finally cuts off the path to escape, if any.
In a moment of despair, at the end of the movie, he will again come to the same forest in search of the old woman, and the new prediction - already a perfect unbelievability - will fill him with confidence in his own infallibility. This confidence will lead him to the final collapse. Can a man have the slightest hope that he is the master of his own destiny if he is unable to cope with his desires and emotions?
Shakespeare's plots do not come off the stage and screen for nothing, their plasticity is amazing, they are equally easily transferred to any era and any country and everywhere look organic. A deliberate theatricality and some static action and sophistication of story development create an atmosphere of timeless narrative, in which any external signs of place and era serve as nothing more than scenery. Akira Kurosawa moved the action of “Macbeth” in medieval Japan, generously add bloody and mystical tragedy excessive decorativeness unusual to the European eye costumes and sharply contrasting restraint replicas and gestures.
Japanese “Macbeth”-Vashizu by virtue of tradition and peculiarities of upbringing will not utter flowery exquisite monologues. His treacherous wife confines herself to brief - but exceptionally capacious - lines, not daring not only to teach, but also simply to interrupt her husband and master. This loss in the unique colors of the original Shakespearean drama in Kurosawa's film is more than compensated for by the hundred percent coincidence of the old Scottish legend with the cultural traditions of Japan, where questions of honor and loyalty to the lord play a key role. From this point of view, Washizu's betrayal is even more horrific and disgusting than the bloodbath enacted by Macbeth.
In this sense, the movie's second title, The Castle of the Web, more accurately captures its essence. Aside from the fact that the word “throne” is not quite appropriate to describe the position of a lord in Japan, there isn't much blood in the movie either. In some contradiction to the traditions of Japanese cinema, the blood does not flow in rivers, and the murders are marked with true theatrical modesty rather than shown with naturalistic brutality. In one of the episodes, Washizu turns away from the result of his crime, unwilling to see how far his game of master of fate has gone. On the contrary, Vashizu's web of intrigue and atrocities entangles him tighter and tighter, preventing him from escaping from the grip of greed and the desire for power, which in the end turns out to be illusory and disappears without a trace in a strong gust of wind. Just like a spider's web...
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