Sansho the Bailiff

It's a real privilege to watch a film like Sansho on the big screen; to soak up the rich atmosphere of Mizoguchi's epic story in the way it was intended.

Remarkably for a film almost half a century old, it's dated very little. By today's standards of course, the characters are somewhat archetypal and the transformations they undergo a little jarring, but the acting is still of a high quality; measured and poignant. The cinematography is a revelation, evoking the haunted, mystical landscape of rural Japan with a quiet mastery.

Set in medieval times, Sansho is essentially a morality tale about a governor who takes a stand against the moral bankruptcy of feudal lords and their exploitation of the peasant classes. For his beliefs he is exiled, and his wife and children, Zushio and Anju, set off on a journey to find sanctuary in another province. When they are brutally separated, the children are sold into slavery and Sansho, a merciless landowner and tax collector, becomes their master. After a decade of captivity, at the prompting of his sister, Zushio resolves to escape and follow in his father's footsteps: to attain a position of power and right social injustice through the abolition of slavery, exerting his revenge on Sansho in the process.

There are certain thematic parallels with A Man For All Seasons but for me, this is much the better film. While displaying the same conviction, Zushio and his father are possessed of a more human, less obtuse nature than Thomas More. Sansho encompasses human tragedy on a grand scale rather than in the intriguing but ultimately hollow clash of Church and State. Given that it's dealing with heavy emotional material, Mizoguchi's film is strikingly unsentimental; he doesn't shy away from depicting the brutality of Sansho's house or the cruel ironies of fate to which all characters are hostage.

山椒大夫
Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954