HEAVEN AND EARTH
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
HEAVEN AND EARTH is a Japanese costume drama by Haruki Kadokawa, who is inter alia a Shinto priest. The story pits two feudal warlords against each other, one young, spiritual, dedicated to preserving his domain, the other older, materialistic, ambitious to conquer all Japan and be the next shogun.
In a sense HEAVEN AND EARTH is organized like a traditional epic, such as the Iliad or the Bhagavad-Gita, in that it begins in medias res and concludes inconclusively, focusing on battles as physical manifestations of spiritual struggles. But for the modern, Western viewer, it's merely inconclusive.
The stars of the film are the costume designer, the cinematographer, and the horse wranglers. I went to the film for the spectacle, the color, and the texture and so was not disappointed. As a dramatic vehicle, it is pretty weak, at least to an American viewer. Two hours of a grim-faced, silent men staring relentlessly into the infinite makes it pretty hard for your humble reviewer to learn anything about character development. When people change, they just do it without much motivation or preparation. When characters die, they just die and it hardly seems important whether it was disease or suicide.
But this is not to say the film is not interesting or worth seeing. It is eye-filling. The costumes are positively stunning. The scenery magnificent, even though most of the exteriors were shot in Alberta. Rich, saturated colors, almost as painterly as early Technicolor, visual drama in every shot. There is a sequence in cherry-blossom time that is not to be believed.
There is narration by Stuart Whitman to get us up to speed with the historical events; otherwise the events would be nearly inaccessible to a Westerner. This part of Japanese history may or may not be well-known in Japan, but the Battle of Kawanakajima is nothing I know anything about. Apparently, research was a major budget item here with authentic restagings of the battles, attention to traditional strategy, and a simulation of actual troop movement. Not being a military history buff myself, what I saw a the amazing spectacle of thousands of men in red and black armor, even more thousands of flags and banners. The influence of Kurasawa and especially RAN is pretty obvious and ironic in its way. This movie cost $42 million dollars, every one of which is visible on the screen, whereas Kurosawa has to go overseas to fund his masterpieces and has not been liked in his homeland for decades.
HEAVEN AND EARTH is a pretty picture, but it is not a great movie. However, I can recommend it with reservations to at least the Japanophiles amongst us.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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