The Idiot (1951)

Thanks for the memories!

Lack of good storyline.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

A Japanese veteran, driven partially mad from the war, travels to the snowy island of Kameda where he soon enters a love triangle with his best friend and a disgraced woman.Akira Kurosawa has said, "Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one. I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I've liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film. He is still my favorite author, and he is the one — I still think — who writes most honestly about human existence." First of all, for Kurosawa fans, it is a shame the full, uncut version of this film is lost. You might think that three hours is already a long movie (and you would be right), but apparently the original cut was more in the realm of five hours. Considering in retrospect that Kurosawa may be the greatest Japanese director of all time (it is him or Ozu), any footage would be valuable...For me, what I really like is the use of Dostoevsky. Surely the author never thought his book would be used in a Japanese film, with a Japanese setting, but he never would have expected a film at all. Like Kurosawa, Dostoevsky is possibly my favorite author. He has a way of capturing the psychology of man and putting it on paper in a way no one else ever has. I'm not sure if this is what Kurosawa means about "human existence" (I think not), but we clearly agree on solid source material.

Yikes! Most of my least favorite Kurosawa flicks before this one were quite a distance above mediocre. I think my least favorite had been Dersu Uzala, which is pretty forgettable, but has its moments (the building of the hut to shield from the wind in particular). The Idiot is by a vast chasm Kurosawa's worst film. Part of this is not his fault. His original cut ran four hours plus, while the studio's released version runs less than three. The story, based on Dostoyevsky's novel, feels chopped to bits. I think I got the gist of it by the end, but it's only barely comprehensible by itself. Perhaps the film stands decently if you've read the source material. However, there is plenty of legitimate criticism of what we do have to justify calling it Kurosawa's worst anyway. This material just doesn't fit Kurosawa's talent. He always has a penchant for melodrama, and that works fairly well in the historical films, as well as his crime films. In fact, in every other film I've seen from him it has worked at least okay. Here, it feels hopelessly misplaced. The set-pieces are so over-performed and even over-directed that they become painful to sit through. Of course, it might help if I knew what the heck was going on. About the only real piece of interest is Ozu's muse Setsuko Hara playing a rather nasty woman, a femme fatale of sorts. It's kind of playing against type, and she does a pretty good job. I can't say I feel the same for Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, or the film's star, Masayuki Mori.

Not having read the novel, I am not encumber by the fact that 100 minutes of this film was left on the cutting room floor. I am a Kurosawa fan and love Toshirô Mifune, so I approach the film from that angle.The setting on a Japanese mountaintop fits right in with the fact it is based on a Russian novel. It was so cold that I had to put a coat on to watch it.Kameda (Masayuki Mori) arrives in town after being released from a mental institution. He is "The Idiot," a simple man who is so Christ-like in his manner that people are put off guard. he runs into Akama (Toshirô Mifune), a rich man who has come back to claim his sweetheart, who has been a mistress to another wealthy man since she was 14. Both Kameda and Akama are in love with Taeko (Setsuko Hara), who is promised to a third man. This makes for a fascinating story as the men joust for position, with Taeko playing everyone against each other.There are many other characters that float in and out of this drama, and it makes for some interesting and funny dialog. As mush as I like Kurosawa's samurai epics, his dramas are even better.In the end, there were two idiots.

First and foremost, I love Kurosawa films. He is in my opinion one of the world's greatest film makers, bar none. His ability to tell compelling stories is legendary. So, when I rate this movie a 5, I do so only because of respect to Kurosawa, if it were someone else I would rate it even lower. The reason I am disappointed with this movie is because of the horrendous editing that left the viewer, me, wondering why so many characters reacted to different situations. I think a person who understands this film has had to have read Dostevyski's novel because he certainly didn't 'get it' from viewing the film. I have been told that the studio whacked half of the film on the editing room floor. In so doing, the studio left the viewer in a lurch as to why things happened, more-so in the beginning of the movie than the end...but, it requires too much to ask of an audience to understand or infer what is going on with the movie when it should be crystal clearly developed and the audience should KNOW why things happen, rather than guess. Kurosawa is by far too good a communicator to have knowingly allowed or directed this in a fashion that the audience is lost, which is exactly how I felt after viewing this movie...lost, lost in translation, lost on the editing room floor.