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Akira Kurosawa is known for warm, humanistic dialogue and characters, but this burns brightest. ‘Seven Samurai’ is a celebration of life, and a fair one.
Name(s): Seven Samurai
Original publication date: Unknown
Possibly my favorite movie. I can’t think of a more fulfilling plot and script I’ve ever experienced. Finishing this epic felt like lifting a weight off my shoulders, and feeling all the positivity from doing so. Akira Kurosawa often has warm, humanistic dialogue and characters, but Seven Samurai burns brightest. Like many Kurosawa movies, it’s is a celebration of life and a fair one.
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What fascinates me the most in this movie is it’s realism. Even after 4 of his comrades and many farmers’ deaths, all Kambei says is “The farmers have won. Not us”. Really, he didn’t change even a little bit throughout the film. Likewise, after Kikuchiyo legendary triad he says “You were a farmer, weren’t you?” He refuses to undertand their way of living and problems. Because a samurai is a man of the state
Thanks for the comment! That’s an interesting angle I hadn’t considered myself. I’m so accustomed to the romanticizing of samurai in Japanese media that I didn’t interpret Kambei’s comment as anything other than musing on the sacrifice of servitude. With hindsight, you’ve made me wonder if Kambei was Kurosawa’s personification of previous generations’ view of samurai. It would be appropriate, given that he’s the most aged of the seven. Do you think his last statement might have been him realizing that samurai are incapable of sharing in their victories, since they are intrinsically devoted to the whims of others? Maybe that hints at a change within him. It’s been so long since I watched the film, though. Let me know if you think I’m overlooking something.
It is very up to interpetation what Kambei will do with the rest of his life. I personally don’t like the idea of his character progressing at the end of the movie as it would contrast with the rest of the cast. The only person who went through change is the young impressionable student.
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