Food and the Endless Waltz Essay

Akira Kurosawas seminal work sevener Samurai is a stirring and heart-rending commentary on 16th snow Japan. The impression focuses on the rigid caste system of Japan where warriors fight while peasants farm to support them. The records artistic value makes it worthy of being called a Kurosawa masterpiece. However, it is in the lesson the film judges to impart that is maybe where the true genius of Kurosawa is seen. Set in the Sengoku Jidai, the century of war, the haughty warrior class be locked in an timeless waltz of bloodshed while the food producing peasant, the true heart of Japan, are ignored though they endlessly win in the end.For pure production value al unmatched Seven Samurai was a masterpiece. Kurosawa introduced a bet of filming techniques that would soon be mainstream fare for action films the world over. One example is the use of boring motion filming to emphasize the death of a main character. It was also the most expensive Nipponese film of its time and i s possibly the most successful Japanese film period.The premise of the film is as common as strain in Sengoku Jidai Japan. A group of bandits, either masterless samurai called Ronin or dreaded peasants driven to banditry by the loss of their farms to the constant warfare, are terrorizing a villold age. Peasants lacking the skills and weapons to fight back they seek help from the Gentleman Warrior class known as Samurai. After much hardship they find Seven Samurai, well six considering that Kikuchiyo was reasonable a pretender, who after much blood shed succeed in fending of the bandit. Ironically, instead of a victory parade or laurels they are ostracized by the people they just bled for.The main theme is the separation between the Warrior class and the peasants. The peasants humbly admit that they are incapable of chip and are forced to go to the city and recruit Samurai who are willing to fight for mere terzetto meals a day since that is all they can afford to pay. The haught y Samurai reject this offer since, as process of the gentleman warrior class they deserve better than lead peasant meals a day as recompense for their services. With the help of a grizzled veteran Samurai named Kanbei they managed to recruit Six Samurai plus a straggler named Kikuchiyo. They bid a cold welcome from the other villagers who fear them as much as they feared the bandits.This theme continues to be played out during the movie. In the past wounded, fleeing Samurai were killed and robbed by the villagers when the Samurai sought refuge there. The Seven Samurai are ferocious at this brutality and nearly turn on their employers. The farmers are worried that the Samurai would take their young women and in fact one of the Samurai does carry on an affair with a village daughter.All this is the result of the age old tradition that simply certain worthy individuals could become Samurai warriors. The rest of the rural folk are consigned to becoming peasants. The Samurai choose to break this tradition by training the local peasants to help them defend the village, albeit with trammel success.The end of the movie displays the most poignant scene in the whole film. Four of the Samurai are hit but the village is sucessfully defended. Instead of showing gratitude, the villagers ignore the surviving Samurai and busy themselves with planting next years crop. Kanbei lament that He has never won a battle is given new meaning. Doubtless, the three surviving Samurai will move on to another of the endless battles of the era known as The century of war leaving the villagers in peace.Victory belongs not to the slain bandits nor the ostracized surviving Samurai but to the common peasants. They won because their life can now go back to normal to planting the life giving rice that sustains Japan to this day. True, they are maltreated by their lords, helplessly slaughtered in the battles, and at times forcibly conscripted as they were in the film. But the peasants life will continue, planting rice, water and tend the crop, and then harvest just as he had for centuries, just as he will continue to do. some other theme is the superiority of modern technology over the old. Many subplots in the movie are nearly disabling the firearms of the bandits. There are fourty bandits and only seven Samurai but the Samurai are better skilled only the firearms give the bandits the upper hand. In fact all four of the Samurai killed died due to gunfire and not in honorable single combat. Finally there is the wisdom of Kikuchiyo. He was a phony Samurai lacking the high-birth of a proper member of the warrior class. Yet with the exception of Kanbei peradventure he had the most significant role in the movie. He is the one who sucessfully breaks the ice and convinces the Villagers to flee from their hiding places and meet the other Samurai. He was also the one who pointed out that the reason the fleeing Samurai are maltreated by the villagers is because they too ab sorbed cruel treatment from the warrior class.It was principally through his wisdom and understanding, he is not actually a Samurai but a farmers son, that the Samurai and the villagers are able to work together in harmony. Truly, despite his unworthy roots and oafish expression he is probably the most Samurai of the seven. He dies a noble and worthy death avenging a travel comrade and slaying the leader of the bandits. As stated earlier, Seven Samurai is a testimony to the skill of Akira Kurosawa in both writing and directing. The films shows the suffering of the peasants during the Sengoku Jidai. The Samurai win victories only to waltz on to another of the endless battles perhaps to win or perhaps to die. But after the warrirors leave the food producing peasant will pinch in his field and contiue planting his life giving crop.SourcesKurosawa, Akira Seven Samurai (26 April 1954)