The Idiot (1951) poster
N/A
Your Rating: Not Available
# of Watchers: 130
Reviews: 1 user
Ranked #110173
Popularity #99999
Watchers 0

After narrowly escaping death during the recent war, Kameda returns to Japan from Okinawa, where he has been confined to an asylum. Because he is subject to seizures of epilepsy, he is considered to be mentally ill. During his journey home, he becomes acquainted with the wealthy Akama. Inadvertently, the two fall in love with the same woman, Taeko; in addition, Kameda is attracted to Ayako, another woman who returns his affection. Edit Translation

  • English
  • magyar / magyar nyelv
  • dansk
  • Norsk
  • Country: Japan
  • Type: Movie
  • Release Date: May 23, 1951
  • Duration: 2 hr. 46 min.
  • Score: N/A (scored by 0 users)
  • Ranked: #110173
  • Popularity: #99999
  • Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

Cast & Credits

Photos

The Idiot (1951) photo

Reviews

Completed
The Butterfly
3 people found this review helpful
Mar 1, 2023
Completed 0
Overall 7.5
Story 7.5
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

"Why hadn't I been kinder?"

Kurosawa Akira tackled Dostoyevsky when he gave his interpretation of the novel The Idiot. The story was a morality tale of what happened to an innocent lamb in a den of wolves, even when friendship and love had been professed by all.

Kameda had been accused of a war crime and was about to be executed when he received a reprieve. He was summarily acquitted, but the damage had been done. He developed what the film called epileptic dementia. Kameda was reborn a kind man with a pure spirit. He had developed the ability to look into people's eyes and see into their soul, their kindness, their sorrow, their rage. After spending time recuperating in an asylum, he chose to travel to his last known relative.

On the train to Hokkaido, Kameda made friends with Akama. Akama was as brutish as Kameda was serene but the rough man took a liking to the gentle one. Akama was on his way to Sapporo to marry Taeko, a sad, beautiful woman who had been Tohata's mistress since she was fourteen. Tohata had decided to dismiss her and was offering a 600,000 yen dowry to whoever would marry her. With the death of his overbearing father Akama had received an inheritance and he was prepared to pay to have Taeko be his. Kameda also had received and inheritance, but what he didn't know was his relatives had already taken possession of his property.

Kameda met Taeko and found a lost and kindred spirit. He saw a pure soul in her buried under the shame and suffering. Taeko's exterior was as frozen as the ice-covered statues outside, but melted when for once someone respected her and she fell immediately for Kameda. Akama burst onto the scene with 1 million yen and was not looking to take no for an answer. Taeko threw the money into the fireplace and chose Akama. She knew that if she went with Kameda she would ruin him, Akama was the kind of man that even if she ruined him, it would not matter. As Kameda would later observe, she destroyed everything good that came into her life.

Afterwards, Kameda and his relative's daughter, Ayako, began to see each other. Jealous and conflicted, Ayako oscillated between love and hate for Kameda and his friendship with Taeko. Akama suffered the same fate except with a hotter hate and jealousy toward both Kameda and Taeko. Akama turned abusive toward Taeko because he knew she didn't love him and he harbored murderous thoughts for his friend Kameda.

For nearly the whole film, blowing snow pelted the characters. Piles of snow flanked the sides of the road and covered the roofs. The dark, cold world perfectly fit the mood of this film. Eventually, the buried feelings would explode with the heat of the flickering fire in Akama's wood stove leading to a tense, emotional scene as Kurosawa marched them in circles ever closer and closer to the long-awaited culmination.

Akama and Kameda were like the devil and the angel on Taeko's shoulders whispering which way she should go. Kameda didn't have any business sense or desire for wealth. He did, however, face every person and problem with kindness and understanding which earned him the name Idiot. Though he had been in an asylum for treatment, other characters would display for more frightening madness than he ever could. He showed compassion, others showed deadly obsession, envy, and dangerous emotional swings.

Mori Masayuki gave Kameda an almost angelic bearing, a difficult character to play. Some scenes he was more successful than others in breathing life into Kameda. Mifune Toshiro and his animalistic energy surged against the calmness of Mori's performance. Hara Setsuko playing against type with her often sunny performances, plumbed the depth of the darkness of Taeko. The youngest of the love square, Kuga Yoshiko, did what she could with the complex character of manic Ayako whose emotions flipped back and forth almost in the same breath. Mori was 20 years older than Kuga in real life, who was only 20 years old when the movie came out, and they looked an odd age match, made even odder since she was a relative in the story.

At the beginning of the film there were dozens of characters, but only Kameda, Akama, Taeko, and Ayako truly mattered, the rest were simply the chorus explaining why people thought Kameda was an idiot and giving voice to their concerns about him and finally understanding that he was too beautiful for a cruel world.

The pacing could be odd at times. The use of intertitles was very disrupting but that was not Kurosawa's fault. Initially, the film was going to have two parts, with a run time over 260 minutes. The production company cut 100 minutes from the film and summed up some of the first act with the intertitles. In all honesty, it might have been for the best. I really don't see how this film could have remained remotely compelling at 4 ½ hours even with adding more fully developed backstories. Nearly three hours was enough for me.

The Idiot can require some patience with its slow, melodramatic journey through what felt like an eternal and unrelenting winter. The only warmth and light came from Kameda loving the unlovable, forgiving the unforgivable, and facing a cruel and treacherous world with an open heart. In the end, those who remained came to realize the real idiots were the ones whose love included hate.

He was a "…genuinely good man. It may seem ironic choosing a young idiot as his hero, but in this world, goodness and idiocy are often equated. This story tells of the destruction of a pure soul by a faithless world." (The Idiot intertitle)

2/28/23




Read More

Was this review helpful to you?

Recommendations

There have been no recommendations submitted. Be the first and add one.

Recent Discussions

Be the first to create a discussion for The Idiot

Details

  • Movie: The Idiot
  • Country: Japan
  • Release Date: May 23, 1951
  • Duration: 2 hr. 46 min.
  • Content Rating: Not Yet Rated

Statistics

  • Score: N/A (scored by 0 users)
  • Ranked: #110173
  • Popularity: #99999
  • Watchers: 130

Top Contributors

2 edits
1 edit
1 edit

Popular Lists

Related lists from users

Recently Watched By