High and Low (1963)

 Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low"

Going in to Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film "High and Low," I wasn't sure what to expect. The premise of the film is rather simple: a wealthy industrialist becomes the target of a ruthless kidnapper. Seems like it would be an interesting thriller, especially at the hands of a master like Kurosawa. However, what I received from the film was something much more than just a commonplace thriller. 

The film is structured by three acts. Each act seems to act as its own movie. The first act, what I would consider the 'high' from the film's title, takes place mostly in the wealthy industrialist's (Kingo Gondo) luxury apartment home. Gondo is a shoemaker and plans to take over his company through a total buyout. He sinks all of his fortune into this plan. However, before he is able to execute his plan, he gets word that his son has been kidnapped and the ransom is $30 million. However, it comes to light that the kidnapper kidnapped the wrong boy. Instead, it is Gondo's chauffer's son who has been kidnapped. Nevertheless, the kidnapper still wants the money. The entire first act of the film acts as a moral play. Gondo must decide between his wealth/livelihood and the life of his chauffer's son. The fist act is very Shakespearian in the way Kurosawa ponders questions of power. Is it worth it for Gondo to forsake his own power and privilege for the sake of an innocent child? Kurosawa uses blocking and framing in Gondo's top floor apartment to allow the characters to interact with this question. This drama becomes the dilemma of the elite: privilege over humanity? 

The second act is the police procedural. After Gondo reaches the moral conclusion that he must sacrifice his own wealth to save the child, the police hunt begins. While the first act was the 'high' from the film's title, this act acts as the 'and' for lack of a better analogy. This police procedural is perhaps one of the most thorough and engaging 'catch the bad guy' segments of a film I've seen since Fritz Lang's 1931 masterpiece "M." This section acts as a passageway between the 'high' and 'low.' With this section, we also see how cold, ruthless, and inhumane the 'board' of Gondo's company is. They have no compassion for him, despite his selfless sacrifice for a human child. After kicking him out of the company, the police sympathize with Gondo and become hellbent on catching the kidnapper. They carry the audience along the way until we reach his ultimate destination. Once they finally locate him, the next phase is to follow him until they can catch him in one of his illegal acts.

The last act is the 'low' from the film's title. Once we begin to tail the perpetrator, we begin to see the lower depths of Japanese society and even more so, the reason behind the kidnapping and extortion. The kidnapper, a low income medical student, gets tailed through the depths of hell (The actual title of the film, as translated from Japanese is "Heaven and Hell"). He travels through dance halls, debauchery, and zombie-like drug addicts. It is perhaps some of the most bizarre imagery I've ever seen from a Kurosawa film. Regardless, it is the opposite of the pristine luxury palace on the hill that Gondo found himself king of, where the only problems he faced were power plays. When we occupy the kidnapper's world for the third act of the film, it is not impossible to understand why he wanted the King on the hill to get a taste of tragedy for once in his life. 

Here lies the film's thematic point for me.  In 1963 Japan and in the modern world in general, our societies are divided between the 'highs' and 'lows.' The 'highs' are playing economic games, initiating power plays, and facing moral dilemmas regarding whether humanity should get in the way of business. Meanwhile, the 'lows' don't have the same issues and face more critical situations of their own. In finality, we see two societies separated by modernity. Kurosawa uses his final shots to demonstrate this. While the kidnapper speaks to Gondo between a protected barrier, he says that he wants Gondo to know that he is not afraid of being put to death. After saying this, he begins to tremble. In this moment, you cannot help but feel for the guy. He was alone, frustrated with his economic status, and resentful of Gondo's luxurious penthouse life that he could never have. The kidnapper could be any one of us. In fact, he IS us. Even more chilling, the police were able to search 'high and low' for him, using every resource they had. In the second act, it becomes clear how much state investigation is getting better and better at procuring their perpetrator. If all it took was a millionaire to lose money to get a whole police force to search high and low for you, what possible freedom does that afford you and more importantly, what does that mean for the wealthy elite and their indefensible positions of power? These are all questions Kurosawa poses to the viewer, with no real answers in sight.

Of all of Kurosawa's "noir" or "contemporary" films, I find "High and Low" to be the most engaging and masterful. It grabbed my attention and held it for the full 2 and 1/2 hours of the film's runtime. What I have come to notice about Kurosawa is how he places human bodies in his frames. With the more characters he's able to fit into a frame, the more engaging the image becomes because there is more to chew on in the scene. You can view how each character is engaging with what's happening around them and how each character engages with each other in the process. With this, Kurosawa builds societies and plays with social dynamics. In "High and Low," he does this to explore the modern social challenges of our modern world, and possibly muses on how increasingly divided we as a society we will continue to become.