June 17-24, 2004

movies

The Last Swordfighter

DUSK TILL DAWN: Sanada (left) waits for sunrise.

A washed-up samurai battles for domestic bliss.

The Twilight Samurai

by Shaun Brady

Though the piles of corpses and dismembered limbs expected of the genre never materialize, The Twilight Samurai is nonetheless suffused with death. Swords are finally unsheathed, but with palpable regret. No need for one more senseless killing when so many have proved so futile.

Seibei (Hiroyuki Sanada) is an impoverished low-ranking samurai whose unglamorous duties include keeping stock of emergency provisions. After his wife's death from tuberculosis, Seibei is left to care for his two young daughters and ailing mother, preventing him from enjoying even the occasional post-work sake with his colleagues. Combined with a lack of personal hygiene, his desire to return to his family each night before dusk earns him the derisive nickname "Twilight Seibei."

Seibei is perfectly content in his role as widower and single father until his childhood sweetheart Tomoe (Rie Miyazawa), freed from her marriage to an abusive, high-ranking samurai, begins dropping by to play with Seibei's daughters and mend his tattered clothes. So long removed from fighting that he has sold his sword to pay for his wife's funeral, Seibei accepts the enraged ex-husband's challenge to a duel, armed only with a hefty stick. When Seibei's long-dormant reflexes leave the lout unconscious on the beach, clan officials order him to assassinate another samurai, who refuses to obey a suicide order. The reward could provide Seibei enough financial security to propose marriage to Tomoe.

The Twilight Samurai depicts a country in transition, as the shogunate gives way to the Meiji Restoration. Seibei is something of a progressive thinker, encouraging his daughters to study philosophy as well as handicrafts, but is himself hemmed in by considerations of class and rank. His stoicism hides not just an aversion to violence, but a calculating mind. Yet he has no ambition to rise above his station, fearing that an increase in stature would remove him from the farmland he loves. As Seibei leaves work each night to a mocking chorus, he returns home out of desire, not obligation. His simple happiness makes the final battle scene all the more resonant; he is fighting not only for the life that he could have with Tomoe, but for the comforting warmth of his rough-hewn home.

Director Yamada Yoji possesses a Hawksian mastery of camera placement and movement; there are no self-conscious displays of artistry, but his languorous tracking shots reveal detailed landscapes. Age and experience provide the confidence to stray from the plot in order to dwell on quotidian elements: Seibei pausing to notice the blooming azaleas, or taking the time to say goodbye to his mother, who by this time doesn't even recognize him, before heading off to a duel. Virtually unknown in the States, Yamada is famous in Japan for the "Tora-San" series, 48 films produced over 25 years, all with the same protagonist. It seems astounding that a filmmaker could devote so much screen time to one character, but given Yamada's attention to the tiny moments of everyday joy that color Seibei's life, the fact seems less remarkable.

The Twilight Samurai Directed by Yamada Yoji An Empire Pictures release Opens Friday at Ritz East
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