Even though there is a horrifying stream of images of war flooding from Ukraine, I decided to watch again the historical war film Ran by Akira Kurosawa that had impressed me so deeply when I was young. Perhaps fiction helps to cope with stressful reality.
When rewatching Ran, I discovered that my interpretation of the film as being a pacifist and pessimistic one proved to be correct. Despite its spectacular war scenes, Ran does not idealize war.
As the warlord Hidetora decides to transfer his power to his sons, their lust for power and revenge leads to chaos (the word ran means chaos), war and destruction. Not even the originally loyal youngest son Saburo survives. There are no heroes.
What especially impressed me was the fact that Hidetora, after giving up power, starts to see the atrocities he had committed when young and hungry for power. Grasping one's guilt may not be very common in real life, and as to Hidetora, it drives him crazy.
After rewatching Ran, I also felt relieved, because the bloodlust of Kaede, the widow of the eldest son, is not explained by her being a woman, but by the fact that her family had been slain by Hidetora. Indeed, Hidetora had also killed the family of Sue, the wife of the middle son Jiro, but she found forgiveness in Buddhism. Not even Sue is saved.
The final scene in Ran has always been haunting me. Tsurumaru, the brother of Sue - blinded at an early age by Hidetora - is left on his own devices after the death of his sister, staggering on the brink of a wall, trying to find his way with his white stick. Similarly, mankind is staggering blindly at the edge of a brink, blind and helpless, just one misstep from destruction.
Photos Pixabay
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