Red Beard

 3.5/4

Starring: Uzo Kayama, Toshiro Mifune, Terumi Niki, Yoshio Tsuchiya

Not Rated (probable R for Disturbing Violent and Sexual Content and Brief Nudity)

Doctors are fairly common in movies.  They're on screen to deliver important news to the main characters, help with baby delivery, or quickly establish background for a character.  They're either walk-ons or cinematic shorthand.  Rarely do we see on film the experience of being a doctor.  The day to day grind that is simultaneously validating and heartbreaking, the need to connect, and those rare moments of success that make all the hard work worth it.

Hotshot doctor Noburo Yasumoto (Kayama) believes he is dropping off a note to a clinic for the poor on his way to his new job as personal physician to the shogun.  He's in for a serious reality check: he's the clinic's new doctor.  That means no cushy job or life of luxury for him.  Instead he'll be overworked and underpaid, and serving under Red Beard (Mifune), who runs the place.  Yasumoto is displeased at this unexpected turn of events, and makes no secret of it.  But the more interacts with the patients, the more he begins to understand something crucial: in order to become a good doctor, you must first be a good person.

In general, "Red Beard" is about Yasumoto's journey from cocky jerk to being a good man.  To illustrate this, director Akira Kurosawa shows him interacting with patients with pasts too terrible to tell and who have undergone unimaginable suffering.  It's hard not to be humbled when a patient in your care explains that her murderous insanity comes from a lifetime of horror.

Although "Red Beard" is clearly Yasumoto's story, the influence that Red Beard has on the young man cannot be overlooked.  Red Beard is, for the most part, modest and doesn't say much.  But he listens and doesn't judge.  Anyone who walks into his clinic is worthy of treatment and respect.  This is a tricky role for Mifune, who must communicate more through his body language than his words.  Red Beard is, more than anything, a beacon of stability.

Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa.  Few actor/director pairs, other than perhaps Scorcese/DeNiro, are more inextricably linked.  Their films together read like a list of classic films: "Throne of Blood" (which I didn't care for), "Yojimbo," "Sanjuro," "The Hidden Fortress," and of course, "Seven Samurai."  This was their final collaboration together before they split (reportedly, Mifune grew frustrated with Kurosawa's perfectionism and long production schedules).  Yet this is an atypical entry for them.  It's not an action movie and doesn't feature any samurai.  There is one action scene, but it's short and played mostly for laughs.

Kurosawa has structured his film mostly as a series of dramatic vignettes connected by a cadre of characters.  These stories range from tragic to genuinely disturbing.  This isn't a happy movie, for the most part.  But through these explorations of suffering, we are moved by the well-earned transformation of Yasumoto.  It's not all misery, though.  Kurosawa gets in some biting humor (for the most part, the women workers are good for a laugh) and pointed social commentary about a society that coddles the rich and leaves the poor to suffer.

The film's first half is stronger than the second.  The latter half, where Red Beard assigns Yasumoto to care for a traumatized girl named Otoyo (Niki) is effectively presented, but it lasts too long and occasionally loses focus.  For this story, the short story format of the first half works best.  There's also the matter of how Yasumoto ended up working at the clinic and how his messy personal life led him to there without his knowledge.  It doesn't make a lick of sense and hurts the sense of immersion.  Fortunately, Kurosawa doesn't dwell on it.

"Red Beard" is challenging cinema.  It's deliberately paced and contains more than a few blows to the soul.  But that serves to make Yasumoto's growth into a good man feel authentic and earned.  Those who venture in will find their time well-rewarded.