The Bad Sleep Well

The Bad Sleep Well (Warui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru) (1960) 

Runtime: 150 minutes

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa

Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Kyoko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Takashi Shimura

From: Toho

This is my first Kurosawa since the excellent Ikiru, something which I imagine I can never watch again. It was viewed back in April while my mom was sick but a few weeks before it was known that she was going to pass away. Considering her illness and the plot of the movie... it probably would be too difficult to view again. This in comparison was easy to watch even if it's a bleak revenge tale which fits the line (heard in Bond movies and elsewhere) of “The first thing you should do if you're looking for revenge is to dig two graves” and in what you typically don't see in this genre, those looking for payback will find that it's a Pyrrhic victory, if not a victory at all.

Without getting into even as much detail as the descriptions on Goggle and here at Letterboxd give, someone is pissed about a scandal involving two companies in Japan (one of which is public-owned) because it resulted in one person committing suicide. This person feels like they have to be ruthless themselves to bring down these reprobates, only to discover he does not like what he himself is turning into. As Scorsese himself once said, the first half hour of this is a masterpiece: it begins at the wedding of Toshiro Mifune to the handicapped daughter of the Vice President of one of the two companies. Rumblings of a scandal resulted in quite a few newspapermen arriving to see if anyone would be arrested there. Besides the main players all being introduced and their characters presented in a concise manner, the press sometimes deliver catty comments that explain the controversy and how it appears that Mifune is only marrying the lady to ascend in the company.

Of course the movie looks great and is filmed spectacularly, with plenty of long takes where the camera is either stationary and allows for multiple characters to be viewed at the same time during exposition or there are minimal camera movements, and cuts are only made to highlight key points. This combines film noir and modifies the Hamlet story-how, I dare not reveal-to create a story that was never dull despite the 2 ½ hour runtime. The ending I know has always been an issue for some; me, it was not too much a detriment & I can say this is very good. Not a masterpiece or one of Kurosawa's best but that is mainly due to how great the director is; this is still worthy of viewing. If nothing else, the movie quickly explains the meaning of its provocative poster.