A
bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami (Mifune) when a
pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to
right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering
streets for the stray dog whose desperation has led him to a life
of crime.
CRITIQUE
While
the name Kurosawa is synonymous with samurai cinema in the minds of
most, what he was truly a master at was human drama. Made the year
before his breakthrough film, Rashomon, Stray Dog, a
stark, compelling look at Japan in the post-war years, is Kurosawa’s
first masterpiece. The country is in the midst of a transitory
period. The war is over, but the economic boom that would follow was
still a few years away. Japan is under U.S. occupation, and the way
people live their lives is largely compelled by circumstance. In the
midst of this, Detective Murakami, a veteran of the war, squeezes
himself onto a crowded city bus after a bad day at the shooting
range. His gun is stolen, and his obsession begins.
Kurosawa
captured an interesting time in Japanese history with this film,
shooting in the streets of Tokyo just a few years after the war
ended. The cinematography by Asakazu Nakai is gorgeous, with lots of
wide angle, deep focus shots. Just as the images of Tokyo that we see
here would quickly pass into history with the economic boom that
followed the release of this film, Kurosawa’s style would also change
in the following years, as he switched from predominately wide angle
shots to more telephoto, soft focus photography. Kurosawa is on the
brink here, having outgrown his influences, and, because of World War
II, given a context with which to work.
As Murakami’s
obsession with finding his pistol grows and he travels into the bowels
of the city, we see a society on the brink, teetering between the
Yusas and Murakamis of the world. Yusa, the man who we later learn
stole the weapon, is a veteran like Murakami. They both suffered the
same degradation after the war, and Murakami knows that he could have
easily wound up in his shoes. The more he learns about Yusa, the more
Murakami sees more of himself. The only thing that separates them is
that Murakami made a choice to pick up the pieces of his life and
rejoin society. The rest of the country is struggling with the same
conflict: to go on, or to tumble into chaos. This dynamic permeates
the film. Yusa’s sister sympathizes with him, but his brother-in-law
has no patience for Yusa’s blame-the-world attitude. The duality of
Yusa and Murakami makes the last image of them all the more powerful:
the two of them, framed so that they are the mirror image of each
other, physically and emotionally spent and writhing in the mud.
I
could go on and on about the layers to Stray Dog. The film is
a social commentary, a story of growth and education, all in the guise
of a crime drama. The direction is clear, and the acting incredible.
(The cast is largely made up of people who would go on to be Kurosawa
regulars.) This film is important to the career of Kurosawa, and to
the emergence of Japanese cinema. It should not be missed.
THE VIDEO
Stray Dog
is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. On most
television sets, this will look like a fullscreen presentation,
but on widescreen sets, the black bars will appear on the sides of
the screen to preserve this format. None of the picture is lost.
The transfer is quite good, giving us an image quality we have not
had for this film in a long time. There is some grain in certain
scenes, but this seems to have more to do with the original 35mm
print from which the film was taken than the DVD transfer itself.
THE AUDIO
The film’s monaural soundtrack has been digitally remastered, and
all the clicks, pops and hiss so common with older films have been
reduced to practically nothing. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will
direct the sound to the center speaker on most systems.
THE EXTRAS
The features here focus mainly on
the social atmosphere around the making of the film and the
technique of Kurosawa, who was still relatively early in his
career at this point.
Audio
commentary by Stephen Prince, author of The Warrior’s Camera: The
Cinema of Akira Kurosawa:
Prince talks about Kurosawa’s technique and how that would change in
the years following Stray Dog. He also gives some background
on Kurosawa and the making of this film. Prince seems to be reading,
so there is very little conversational quality to his commentary.
Akira
Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create:
this 32-minute documentary on the making of Stray Dog talks
about filming in the streets of post-war Tokyo, creating the look of
the film, and the journey from initial inspiration to completed film.
There
is also a 16 page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Terrance
Rafferty, and an excerpt from Kurosawa’s autobiography, Something
Like an Autobiography. The features here go into great detail
about this film. The film’s trailer is the only thing left out that
might have been nice to see.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The
first great film from Kurosawa, Stray Dog is a masterpiece that
still holds up 55 years after its release. Given the full Criterion
treatment, this DVD is a must for your collection.
