Akira Kurosawa
Anatomia di un Rapimento

From the novel "King's Ransom" (1959) by Ed McBain, one of the most beautiful (and unknown) films by Akira Kurosawa. Certainly his most American, despite being set in Japan.

This is pure noir, with rhythms from police procedural and mystery. Unfortunately, it was criminally shortened in the Italian version (143' the original length, 104' our local version, meaning 39 minutes cut, I say 39!) it's an incredibly successful film in both its internal and external scenes. And it's not a cliché. The first half hour is entirely set within a part, a small part, of the protagonist's grand mansion.

The plot is quickly told: an industrialist who has just managed to reach the majority share of a large company (holding 47%) after mortgaging his house, receives a phone call from a mysterious guy announcing he has kidnapped his son. But it's a mistake, the kidnapper has taken the chauffeur's son. Yet, our protagonist pays the ransom: 30 million.

From here begins a relentless investigation by the police to discover who the mysterious kidnapper is who, having pocketed the ransom money, seems to have vanished into the mist.

Everything works, from the first to the last scene. The very dense and dialogued beginning, which preludes the tragedy, works, as do the incredible sequences of the police investigation in which all divisions of the station report to the commissioner with a frantic, sometimes frenzied pace. The investigations really are an anatomy of a kidnapping, as the title suggests, in the sense that Kurosawa, like a true entomologist, narrates every detail of the investigation's developments. Some sequences are heart-pounding: meticulous editing creates perfect suspense for the wonderful train scene where the businessman exchanges the bag with the ransom money, tossing it out the window and the exchange with the child.

It was said that this is one of Kurosawa's most Western films. Indeed, apart from works featuring samurai and the like, every Kurosawa work has its own life within Japanese culture (from the beautiful "Ikiru" going back to "One Wonderful Sunday"), but "High and Low" makes a pleasant exception. The director, who loved American noir, immerses himself in his Japan reconstructing it as if it were New York or San Francisco. In the nightclubs, people dance the twist, the highways resemble American highways, and the police investigations are told as in a 1940s American noir. The intent is clear: to transport the classic iconography of American noir into a distant yet not so dissimilar context. The representation of the city is masterful, with neighborhoods that are poor and villas that stand out against the surrounding landscape, a working class destined to succumb, and entire areas ravaged by drugs (the last twenty minutes, in this sense, are chilling).

A little-known film, which moreover had little success upon its release in 1963, overshadowed by two greatly renowned films released earlier ("Yojimbo," 1961, and "Sanjuro," 1962) and the half-realized epic excesses of the subsequent "Red Beard," 1965.

To be rediscovered. Better if in a foreign edition.