Throne of Blood
Throne of Blood
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
Mike reviewedOctober 11, 2024
Throne of Blood is a great and aesthetically pleasing film, with the focus on its unsettling atmosphere
"Ambition is false fame and will fall, death will reign, man falls in vain."
This film is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's story of Macbeth, manifested into a Japanese setting. I really liked this because it felt unique. The plot and plot structure both had a really nice flow to it and made the film go by pretty fast. The ending did feel too abrupt, but this is just a nitpick and didn't have a negative impact on my enjoyment of the film.
The cinematography was stunning and created a very strong atmosphere. The blocking of the characters was beautifully done. The blocking of all the characters on screen was done in a way so that the focus was on Taketoki Washizu for most of the runtime. He was staged seperately from the other characters that were visually grouped together. He was also staged higher than all other characters in a lot of scenes. Blocking Taketoki Washizu this way visualizes that he is the lord of Spider's Web Castle and that he is the most powerful person in the castle.
What differentiates the cinematography of this film with most of Akira Kurosawa's other films, is that it was heavily focussed on the creation of an unsettling atmosphere. The cinematography created a visual limitation for the characters and the viewer, by using multiple elements like; fog, lightning, shadows and the disorienting location of the Prophet in the forest. The slow moving of characters and the oddly moving trees were also visually unsettling to look at.
The cinematography, combined with the subtle yet nerve-wrecking score, created an unsettling and captivating atmosphere that made the story even better than it already was. This is definitely one of my favorite Akira Kurosawa films.
Letterboxd: Mike_v_E