High and Low at the Boulder Public Library

Related Content

• Turning Japanese
  January 19, 2012
• Fall premieres and season-openers: Five more plays to catch this week
  September 13, 2011
• Get Your Wings In Boulder
  November 24, 2011
• Five acts of art vandalism as weird as Carmen Tisch's peeing at Clyfford Still Museum
  January 6, 2012
• Rashomon at Starz
  September 17, 2009

More About

• Akira Kurosawa
• Toshiro Mifune
• Boulder Public Library

Throughout his career, director Akira Kurosawa regularly brought his distinctively Eastern vision to Western cinematic elements, with fascinating results. But whereas Kurosawa's best-known films, including 1950's Rashomon and 1961's Yojimbo, tend to be set in a medieval Japan strode by samurai, 1963's High and Low is a contemporary crime tale, albeit one whose moral complications echo themes in his other work.

Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa's favorite leading man, stars as Mr. Gondo, a shoe-company executive whose plans to seize power at his firm are thrown into chaos when a man kidnaps the son of his chauffeur — and then threatens to kill the boy if Gondo doesn't pay. The film's opening section is a virtual one-act play, with Gondo practically torn asunder by conflicting emotions, whereas the second half turns into a police procedural that pushes him off stage for significant stretches. Given the power of Mifune's volcanic performance, that's unfortunate — but the investigation is handled with such precision and clarity that it's enthralling in and of itself. The movie cuts deep, even though there's not a sword in sight.

High and Low screens Monday, March 9, at 7 p.m. at the Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Boulevard; admission is free. Get details at 303-441-3100 or www.boulder.lib.co.us.