B | A US cavalry officer hired to train the Japanese army switches sides to the rebellious samurai. Directed by Ed Zwick Starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe Review by Jon Kissel |
However, within that restriction, it’s as good as it can possibly be. I do not deny being susceptible to a romanticism of Japan. The best film I’ve seen in months is Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, which is about a Tokyo toilet cleaner who has figured out how to get the absolute most out of his working class life. Take pride and competency in whatever you do, have an artistic outlet, read literature, spend time in nature, reflect on moments from the day before bed, resist the temptation to want more. There is no plot and no arc; it’s just time with the main character. This film is basically how I want to live, and it could only have taken place in Japan. The Last Samurai locates this same appeal within the fief of samurai leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), and lets Algren become as enchanted by it as I was by Perfect Days. It seems like the most natural thing in the world, and Zwick is at his best when The Last Samurai is observing the daily rhythms of rural Japanese life. When coupled with Algren’s past as a lifelong soldier, most recently removed from the genocidal cavalry campaigns in the American West, Cruise is given the extremely easy task of embracing a culture that offers him peace in contrast to his own that has only taken from him.
The setting and the cinematography make this conversion believable, though it’s not like Cruise isn’t doing his part. Removed from the higher-octane stuff of his present-day action films, The Last Samurai gives him space to be smaller. There are slight facial tics that Cruise employs before his road-to-Damascus conversion that accentuate how angry and tortured he is. That’s never in question, as the film makes that as obvious as possible, but Cruise isn’t content to just let the script define his character. Once he becomes a prisoner of Katsumoto and is put up in the house of the widow of a samurai that he killed in battle, the film again gives Cruise the chance to play how foreign this experience is and how he has no idea how to feel at any given moment. He is absolved of the killing by all involved, but Cruise never fully drops a certain amount of shame as he grows closer to the family. He’s helped by Watanabe, who makes Katsumoto into a charismatic warrior monk who finds the most interesting way to say each of his lines. Hiroyuki Sanada pops as the taciturn drill instructor whose slightest nod of approval is the equivalent of a ticker tape parade, while widow Taka (Koyuki) and oldest child Higen (Sosuke Ikematsu) bring the pathos at home.
All of their efforts turn The Last Samurai into a film that works in spite of its framing. The audience surrogate doesn’t become the greatest exemplar of a culture that he’s just encountering, and his presence doesn’t significantly alter the outcome, both of which are assets in preventing The Last Samurai from becoming something repugnant like Avatar. If the film had more trust in its audience and felt like it could complicate things, it would feel less insulting than it does, but I’ll stomach that if I can be brought to tears on more than one occasion. I’ll always prefer it if a film works on both my head and my heart, but one out of two ain’t half bad. B