HIGH AND LOW (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)

For the first 55 minutes HIGH AND LOW (Akira Kurosawa, 1963) is a sparse and minimalist chamber piece in which moral and ethical considerations are put into play, in dazzling long takes and expressive compositions. Mr. Gondo’s business associates present him with a plot to oust the current head of the shoe company they all work for. Sales have been stagnant. The current president is old fashioned. They would make more profits by making more fashionable shoes with in-built obsolescence. If they all gather their shares they could take control of the company. Mr. Gondo (Toshiro Mifune) turns them down. What he doesn’t tell them is he’s mortgaged everything he owns in order to get 50 million to buy a majority share, take over himself, and build shoes that are both fashionable and good quality. As he kicks his associates from his house, Gondo gets a phone call saying his child has been kidnapped and they are asking for a 30 million ransom. If he pays this, it will cost him all he’s worked for since he was a 16 year-old apprentice, his plans for his future, possibly his home. He’s willing to do that for his son. But he will he do the same for someone else’s son? It turns out that the kidnappers have made a mistake and have kidnapped the chauffeur’s son instead. The two moments were the chauffeur gets on his knees, first to beg for his son’s life, and then, once again, when Gondo agrees to pay the ransom and the chauffeur realises the full extent of the sacrifice , were most moving. What is a life worth? Is the life of a chauffeur’s son worth the same as that of an industrialist’s son. What is loyalty? What are a person’s obligations and responsibilities and how should one act to meet them? It’s superb.

The second hour and a quarter turns the film into an exciting police procedural. Who did it? Why? How to find the culprit? In this half, the film descends from the heights of Mr. Gondo’s apartment to the lower depths. The transition is an exciting scene on a train shot with multiple handheld cameras of the exchange of the money for the child.

This is introduced by a wipe, and there’s something to be thought about in the way Kurosawa uses wipes, it’s not just a transition, it’s a move in time, space, mood.

There will be another wipe when we’re introduced to the perpetrator, the camera picks up his reflection in a pond, follows him, through a slum, and into his room where we finally see his face as he then checks out the newspapers and radio to find out where he stands in relation to the police’s investigation.

There’s another incredible scene in a heroin den that is as brilliant a piece of cinema as I’ve seen (the way Kurosawa frames, the balance between close-ups underlining individuals, and the more crowded shot symbolising crime and affliction, the frames within frames, the way the camera is often outside a window looking in, often also through a curtain or screen, the moments of showmanship (the light reflecting on the sunglasses). It really is quite extraordinary.

The film ends with a conversation between the industrialist and the perpetrator. I won’t spoil the film by divulging the reasons for the kidnapping but will merely note that Kurosawa films the reflection of one on the face of the other. Then in the last shot we are left with a pensive industrialist meditating on his own reflection, interestingly with his face not being visible either in the foreground or in the reflection.