The lonely road to success?

Le Samourai (The Samurai; 1967)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville

The film title card starts with a fabricated quote from Bushido, the moral code of the samurai. It says, "There is no greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle… perhaps". Miyamoto Musashi, probably Japan's foremost samurai swordsman of the late 16th century, is said to have said this, among other things. He describes the solitary path to success as being filled with loneliness. Solitude accompanies the path to success. He further goes on to say, in one of the books that he had written, that solitude shapes, moulds, and builds character all along our journey to success.

Does this go against the grain of what we have been taught? We had been told that we are social animals and that a man is not an island. Social interaction is essential for mental health, and a child turns out to be developmentally stunted without the tactile stimulation of his loved ones.

On the other hand, we know how lousy companies and wrong associations often derail our ambitions to attain greater heights. There is a reason why high-level athletes and sportsmen train in isolation before a major event. In the same vein, I suppose seekers of greater knowledge should focus on the quest rather than be swayed by the white noise surrounding them. Is this the detachment Buddha mentions in his teachings, with attachment being the root of all misery?

In the Samurai code, there are guidelines that they have to follow. Their allegiance and loyalty are laid out clearly. His loyalty to his Lord is paramount. But when a samurai loses his master, he drifts around aimlessly like a leaf on moving water, swaying at random to forces of nature. Yet, he is still alone but without any direction in life, clutching on straws for direction and strength. 

'Le Samourai' is a classic French noir that stood the test of time. Combining the elements of art in filmmaking while maintaining its suspense in storytelling, it narrates the tale of a paid assassin who works alone. He laboriously details his every job to perfection. His last job, even though successful, hits a snag. He had been targeted as a possible suspect by the French police. The hiring party, naturally, gets hot under their collar. 

The assassin now has to run to save his own skin, not only from the police who want to pin him down but also from his hirers, who would rather have him eliminated than squeal to the police for their involvement. The assassin, now no longer a samurai but a ronin, has to use his survival skills and judgement to be alive. The silver lining of all is that there is a pretty pianist who was an eyewitness to the murder and can identify the killer but prefers to stay mum. 

It's a good watch—4.3/5—and one of Alain Delon's best movies, which skyrocketed him to the international market.

P.S. Freud and Nietzsche found wisdom through silence found in nature walks and roaming the wilderness. Hardcore criminals are placed in solitary confinement, hoping that they will find meaning of life through self-reflection. Unfortunately, this approach of living in a silo may not be applicable to all. Men of the robe have to flaunt the gift of their gab to showcase themselves as the saviours of mankind. Politicians meet an audience to cheat them blind. Businessmen need people interaction to patronise their premises. Solitude brings these people nothing.

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The spirit of the black cat...

Kuroneko (@ Black Cat, Japanese; 1968)

Director: Kaneto Shindō

Thinking about it, primitive societies of yesteryears were run mainly by female tribe members. The male members were mostly out of the scene most of the time. Some may have been out hunting for food during their caveman days. In more civil societies, when aristocracy ruled the day, the male members needed to do their national services. Many left for months or even years together to fight wars. Children mostly grow up with absent fathers. Wives led the pack in their day-to-day running of the family unit. Men were left to make many life-changing decisions like defence, security, foreign relations and food security.

Guarding the household is no small feat. Nature is very unwelcoming and hostile. Torrential rains, storms, extreme temperatures and wild beasts frequently harass their abode. So, the female species was not as fragile as modern man had made them out to be. They are actually more robust than the world credits them to be.

Both sexes had their respective roles laid out. Both factions must diligently carry out their roles for a society to continue. No one's role was superior to the other. 

When specific communities encourage men to wed more than one partner, it is not so much for carnal pleasures as for the continuity of species. Infant mortality was high, and people had short life spans. At a time when might is strength by the numbers, an extra pair of hands meant better defence and help running the household chores. 

Much like in Onibaba (1964), the villages are left to be manned by the women, as the men have all gone off to fight in local wars. After all, it was the pre-Meiji restoration of the Samurai era. Men all to bring home loot from the wars or at least bask in the glory of attaining 'samurai-hood'. Samurais carry a particular holding in society. 

A mother and daughter-in-law duo are seen eating their meal. Their dinner is ceremonially trespassed by a group of renegade samurai. They eat their dinner, rape the women, kill them and burn down the raggedy hut. A black cat licks their bodies. The spirits of the dead women come in the form of black cats to avenge every samurai that comes their way. Long story short, the husband/son of the deceased returns after the war, ordained as a samurai. He is sent to hunt down the ghost of the duo, unbeknownst to him their identity.

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Part of the company you keep!

Onibaba (Japanese, 1964)
Director: Kaneto Shindō

Many stories tell us to be wary of the company we keep with. Like how Amma frequently reminds us, a calf, if it moves around with piglets, will eventually join the piglets and source its daily meals from the rubbish dump. An animal, placed high in Hindu society, will ultimately do unholy things depending on the company it keeps. 

There is something special about black-and-white movies and the horror genre. It reminds me of my childhood, when my sisters and I would flock around our home 16" TV, squinting to watch RTM's Friday offering of Cerita Pontianak. Even the poor makeup of Pontianak would scare the living daylights out of my sister. She would even be scared to enter the kitchen. To make it worse, I would hide around the corner and jump suddenly in front of her, making her scream!

Onibaba is a classic Japanese movie set in the Samurai era. Times are bad. All the territories are at loggerheads; all men are out to fight, and the women have to rough it out, scavenging on whatever comes their way, stealing from travellers, catching dogs for meals and selling loots. A lady and her daughter-in-law desperately try to survive in that climate. A neighbour, who returns from war, informs them that the lady's son died, not in the war, but while stealing food. The lady blames the neighbour for the son's death. The neighbour seduces the young widow, but the lady is not very happy about it. The lady's daughter-in-law, the young widow, is secretly in love with him and has secret trysts in the dark of the night. The lady comes to know of this and tries to prevent her.

One day, as the lady follows the daughter-in-law to one of these late-night meetings, she is stopped by a mask-donning samurai at knife-point. The lady tricks the samurai by pushing him into a pit. She removes his mask and wears it to scare her daughter-in-law. It works, but the mask gets stuck to her face after getting wet in the rain. After forcefully removing the mask, the lady and her daughter-in-law discover that her face has peeled off and is disfigured. The daughter-in-law runs away scared. The lady falls into the same pit and dies.

A chilling movie. Introduces the Hannya masks, usually used in Japanese Noh theatres, typically representing a jealous female demon.

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In war, everyone loses!

Ugetsu Monogatari (Japanese, 雨月物語, Rain-Moon Tales; 1953)
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

Geopolitical strategists will want us to believe that war is a necessary evil the human race must endure to advance. For a nation, a race or whatever name we give to a group of people with the same thinking to survive, they must engage in combat to stay relevant. Failing which, their ideology will have to change to suit the aspirations of the victors.

Again and again, we see wars are started by great powers to create business. The whole military-industrial complex thrives on it. Citizens sleep well, knowing their neighbours will not overpower them anytime soon. Leaders think they are serving the nation excellently by marching into wars. They purposely overlook the pain, destruction, sorrow and inner demons that it brings out to devastate humanity. Families are torn apart. Food production is disrupted. Peace of mind is broken into pieces. Social mores are shredded. Human values take a backseat.

This is one of the movies that put Japanese cinema on the world map. And it is also one of Martin Scorsese's favourite films. Kenji Mizoguchi holds a special place in Japan, comparable to legendary moviemaker Akira Kurosawa.

This film is set in the Samurai era (1568-1600) when civil war was spreading all over. Genjūrō, a potter, and his brother-in-law, Tōbei, lead a simple life. Genjūrō is all out to make profits with his blossoming business. Tōbei dreams of being a samurai. As hostility is imminent, Genjūrō's wife posters him to leave the village, but Genjūrō goes off anyway to make one last sale before leaving. He goes off with his Tōbei to town. It proved to be a big mistake.

Genjūrō's wife is stabbed by soldiers. Genjūrō is charmed by a ghost and almost marries her. In the confusion of the civil war, Tōbei became a samurai by presenting a severed head of a general as his killing when he merely stole it from a warrior. Tōbei is feted as a samurai and goes places only to find his wife working in a brothel. They return home to lead their old life. Genjūrō returns home to find his wife and son. The following day he realises it was just his wife's apparition.

In the wise words of Lao Tze, everybody loses in a war, especially the common man. The tranquillity and growth achieved all the peaceful years go down the drain, and a reset button is started, littered with tragedy, death, destruction and disappointments.

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Without mercy, man is like a beast

Sansho the Bailiff (山椒大夫, Japanese; 1954)
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

At the outset, we are told the story occurred in "an era when mankind had not yet awakened as human beings." I pictured that time can any time in Man's history. We just have yet to awaken. We can scream all we want that all Men are created equal in the image of God and whatnot, but the fact is that people always try to dominate each other. Humans always try to be one up against their neighbour and, if possible, push him down an imaginary hierarchy.

Even before the mass transatlantic migration of slaves from Africa to the New World, slavery was already very much alive in every civilisation. There was a penchant for white slaves as brown people (read Arabic) prospered. The Vikings and Barbers were famous for the trade of white slaves. Some were captured crew members of small ship-jacked vessels. Others were bundled up when pirates landed on shores to snap up unassuming bystanders. There are stories of pirates picking men off English coasts at late as the 16th century.

Malik Ambar

Even within communities, having slaves became a norm as society started having more disposable income. The darker-skinned or the economically disadvanced always get trapped in slavery. As spoils of war, the conquered are enslaved. One can safely say all civilisations had some kind of slave community. The Greeks, the Egyptians, the Muslim Empire, the Indians and the European colonial masters all had them. Perhaps, only the Harrapan society escape such stereotyping. Excavation of Harrapan remains revealed no structures denying hierarchical arrangements in their architecture. Cyrus the Great is said to be the first leader to have given his slaves and workers wages.

History tells of an Ethiopian slave, Malik Ambar, who was sold off as a slave after his territory was conquered by enemy factions and landed in Jeddah. He converted to Islam and reached the Deccan plains as a slave soldier/mercenary. He got embroiled in local politics,  was a threat to the Mughal Empire and eventually became the Ahmadnagar Sultanate's ruler. His descendants integrated into the complex Indian diaspora. 

Domestic helper abuse in Malaysia.

As the world progressed, people looked at slavery as barbaric and felt they needed change. Change they made, only in cosmesis. Slavery took different names; bonded labour, indentured servants, foreign maids, unskilled workers, etcetera.

In modern times, most religions agree that enslaving someone is not permitted. Perhaps, only the leaders of the Religion of Peace have not unequivocally condemned slavery. In their faith, the non-believers are of the same standing as the slaves. They are serfs meant to serve the believers. Through conversion, they attain equal status with the rest.

The Climatic 'Si Tanggang' scene!

Even in this age and time, we read reports of employers keeping their domestic helpers under the chain and lock for various offences, no different from the transatlantic slave trade and or slave markets in the Ottoman Empire. That begs the question of whether we are or will we ever be 'awakened'?

This is another classic from Japanese cinema. Set in 11th-century medieval Japan, an aristocrat is disposed of by pirates. His wife and children scurry to safety after the aristocrat is exiled. The wife is separated from her two kids. The wife is sold off into prostitution, and the children are enslaved. The melancholic film tells how the son eventually meets his mother.

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The violent past

Throne of Blood (蜘蛛巣城 Kumonosu-jô, Spider's Web Castle, 1957; Japanese)
Written and Direction by: Akira Kurusawa

Since I have not been lucky enough to endowed in an environment splashed with culture and art, nevertheless, I try to educate and enrich the right side of the brain through the back door.
Instead of reading and digesting the moth filled papyrus scrolls, I choose to watch movies instead.
Through my latest escapade, I managed to venture into Shakespeare's darkest tragedy, Macbeth. This, I discovered about watching Kurosawa's 1957 offering of 'Kumonosu-jo', which is quite closely based on the former. The story is set in the 16th century feudal Japan, a tumultuous and violent times indeed.
Washizu and Miki are victorious generals returning to meet their Lord in Spider's Web Castle through a fog filled forests only to be lost and to come face to face with a spirit. Unprovoked, the spirit foretold their futures, that Washiku would be a Commander and subsequently the Lord of Spider's Web Castle and that Miki be a Commander of another fort, a short life but his son would be the Lord of the Castle! They laughed it off only to realise that the first prediction came through.
Washizu confesses the event to his wife, Asaji. Asaji proved to be the evil one, masterminding all of Washizu's subsequent moves. Washizu, in spite of his masculine prowess, seem powerless in front of his wife. The conniving wife prods him further and further to kill and con his way to ensure that the prophecy of the spirit actually materialises.
Washizu actually wants to name Miki's child as his successor after he becomes the Lord of the Spider's Web Castle, after killing the present, no thanks to Asaji's impish plans. But then Asaji becomes pregnant, shelving the plan. The pregnancy ends up as a stillbirth and Asaji has post partum depression.
The carnage goes on. Even Miki is killed on Washizu's orders. The guilt of Wishizu takes its toll on Asaji. Even Washizu's man mutinied against him and shot him down when the castle was attacked by enemies.
The whole show is acted in the traditional Japanese drama style called Noh where actors do not show much emotion but wear a pale face. It only further adds on to the hopeless and melancholic life that feudal society is leading.
The philosophical look in history shows that every civilisation goes on to the next level through violence either through nature's wrath - clash of asteroid, volcanic eruption, earthquake or global warming; or through wrath of men himself (war, fire, famine). Fear of the unknown or paranoia of malady is a strong stimulus for man to plan for his future. At the same time, spreading the fear of a life beyond the realm of conscious mind is another way to rein them to behave in a kind fashion to each other and hopefully peace can reign and the weak can survive.
Is our fate decided or do we decide our fate?
In 'Macbeth' and 'Throne of Blood', the prophecy of witches/spirit comes true. It can argued that the first prediction was due to materialise anyway as they were returning victoriously from they were supposed to do. Just because the first prediction came through, they is a human desire (greed) to make the subsequent predictions to materialise. Sometimes our actions are geared to make it a reality!

Best swords are kept in their sheaths

Sanjûrô (椿三十郎, Japanese; 1962)
Director: Akira Kurosawa

This film is actually a sequel to Kurosawa's 1961 release of Yojimbo. In fact, this one is more entertaining than the former. It is not as violent, and the samurais here use wits and trickery to outbid their opponents rather than brute force. It also showcases many meaningful dialogues like the one stated above - that the best swords are the ones kept in their sheaths.
After watching this offering do you understand why samurai movies were so popular back in the days?

The story is basically about 9 young hot-blooded samurais who are disgruntled with their chief (lord chamberlain) who did not entertain their petition on organised crimes. They think that he may be corrupt. Whilst discussing their predicament, one of them informed that their Superintendent will look into it. Out of nowhere, a rōnin appears at their rendezvous suggesting that it may be the Superintendent who is the corrupt one after all. The rōnin (a samurai without a master), a 30 something who just coins a name for himself (Tsubaki Sanjûrô, after noticing Camellia flowers in the garden; meaning thirty-year-old camellias!)

The young ones were not convinced of his suggestion until they were surrounded. The following story is how these 10 warriors rescue the kidnapped lord chamberlain from the mighty Superintendent and his mighty band of warriors, using wits and dodges rather than might, mostly!
An entertaining flick.