Dodes’ka-den (1970), which screens from 35-millimeter this Sunday at 7 PM at Doc Films, might be described as Akira Kurosawa’s most Italian film. The exuberant, if grimy, depiction of lower-class life sometimes recalls Pier Paolo Pasolini, while the episodic structure, broad humor, and sentimentality evoke the films of Federico Fellini. And for some of the exterior shots, Kurosawa and crew members painted their physical surroundings so that they would appear especially colorful, a technique that Michelangelo Antonioni had tried out in Red Desert (1964). Yet for all these commonalities, Dodes’ka-den remains intensely personal; its central theme of finding refuge in dreams reflects the joy Kurosawa experienced in making movies. It’s not a perfect work—some of the episodes feel simplistic or overly sentimental—but it contains enough splendorous moments to make it worth seeing, especially on celluloid.
By most accounts, Kurosawa was very happy on the set of Dodes’ka-den (documentary footage of the shoot show the director merrily drawing several of the pictures of trains that the developmentally disabled teenager hangs on his walls). He was also productive, completing the shoot in just 28 days despite having agreed to make it in 44. Kurosawa’s pleasure comes through not only in the expressive use of color, but in the sympathetic characterizations. Even when the film threatens to become grating, one knows that the director’s heart is in the right place. Dodes’ka-den may be fanciful in its depiction of poverty, but this comes from a desire to humanize people marginalized by society.
