directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
screenplay by Tokuhei Wakao and Hiroshi Inagaki
based on Hideji Hojo’s adaptation of the novel by Eiji Yoshikawa (1935–9)

Criterion #16. This title’s so huge it takes up two cards — think of that!

I know, I know, we all love this translation busywork. It must be done — trust me — but I’m going to keep it as brief as I can.

宮本武蔵完結編 決闘巌流島, pasted from Wikipedia, is identical to the title seen onscreen in the film, except for the seventh character (last character on the first screenshot above). I can find some Japanese sites that corroborate the character 篇 in place of 編, but no clear explanation of the distinction; as with last time, the dictionaries and translation sites buy the Wikipedia version and are uncertain about the film version, so maybe it’s archaic, or regional.

宮本武蔵 = “Musashi Miyamoto”
完結編 (完結篇?) = “kanketsuhen,” concluding episode or part
決闘 = “kettō,” duel (now being spelled the standard way)
巌流島 = “Ganryūjima” a real island

So: Musashi Miyamoto kanketsuhen: kettō Ganryūjima, or “Musashi Miyamoto concluded: Duel at Ganryujima.” Criterion has Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island. Fine!

Final analysis roundup: the first one stands up the best on its own, but if one is going to watch the whole series, this third one is the most compelling and interesting. The second one falls victim to the standard “middle chapter” problem — since it contains neither setup nor payoff of the main storyline, it has to depend on a secondary subplot for its sense of form, and so it feels accordingly inconsequential.

Of course, even that’s not a great excuse, because the “main storyline” of this series isn’t some kind of elegant, rigorously constructed arc — it’s more of a meandering episodic thing, where the characters crop up and down and meet and separate over many years. Hence the “Japan’s Gone with the Wind” thing that Criterion pushed in their marketing. Yeah — Gone with the Wind has always felt a little arbitrary to me, too.

It may just be that I don’t have a very well developed taste for epic structure. I think it’s probably part of my audience-member DNA that I am personally very dependent on form, balance through time, symmetry, expectations, etc. I don’t really know what to make emotionally of experiences that spool out at indefinite length. My mild sense of lostness in movies like these is I think analogous to my sense of lostness listening to, say, Japanese traditional music. The form is too relaxed and open for me to care about where we’re going, so my only recourse is to care entirely about the present moment… but then the present moments in these movies are no more nuanced or rich than in any other movies. Likewise the present moments in traditional Asian musics. Where is my heart supposed to go? It just sort of lolls around inside of me, waiting for someone to speak up and point and say “look, a future approaches — let’s go try to meet it!” Either that or “look right here, look how true this is!” But neither of those happens.

I know they’re not going to happen, of course, because the real point of a movie like this is something else — it’s about feeling some kind of transport of epic-ness. I’m not unsusceptible to transports of epic-ness, even very old-fashioned ones — like I said, I was generically moved when he walked into the sunset at the end of the first one, and I was similarly moved by moments in this one — but I don’t seek them out, nor am I inclined to seize every slight opportunity to experience them. Fantastical, unreasonable emotions have to actually come and find me; if they just hover nearby as possibilities, I am skeptical of them. This is, I think, why opera has always been hard for me.

This third movie is particularly opera-like in that one can tell by the rhythm, by the music, by the swells of unearthly intensity, whenever the story is breathing its epic breaths — and if one chooses, one can be emotionally affected by the incredible poignancy that is being telegraphed, even as one doesn’t necessarily know why the circumstances entail such poignancy. I gather that such moments are actually the most treasured and most profound to opera-lovers — the unjustifiable emotions that billow eerily outward from flimsy, clichéd events. I guess I get the appeal, but only in proportion and only within a clear framework. Man does not live by Fancy Feast alone.

Wow, that’s pretty confused, but I’m leaving it.

This movie is also opera-like in its grand-scale contrivances and absurd crises. When one of the two desperate woman tosses the other an axe, seizes her own, and declares that they are going to fight to the death for Musashi’s love, that’s, uh, really something.

Anyway, I appreciated that this episode sort of addressed my thematic problems with the last one, even if some of its answers aren’t retroactive. Yes, it was wrong for Musashi to kill all those guys! and yes, above and beyond being the best of the best, there is real life to be lived. Musashi spends a good hour of this one being a farmer, working the land and whittling holy statues out of wood. He has attained enough samurai wisdom to realize that rather than kicking ass, maybe he should be tending his garden. In light of where we had come from, I appreciated that. Of course, it is all in the interest of building up to the superhero duel of a lifetime. But even at the climax, the moral turns out to be that to kill a great man in the name of being awesome is actually tragic, and Musashi (spoiler alert: he wins) ends the trilogy with tears in his eyes. Substantive, right? Well, not really, but an honorable gesture toward substance.

Once again, it was something to look at it. The fighting continued to seem very fake, but when huge, dangerous-looking, obviously real fires blaze right nearby, it more than compensates. And the final sunset-on-the-beach duel was lovely.

These movies are not superficial or kinetic enough to be watched as action, not perceptive or well-written enough to be watched as real human drama, not thoughtful enough to be watched as philosophic or symbolic, nor even clearly-drawn enough to be really savored as melodramatic soap. But what they are is a genial mishmash of bits of all those things, in an excellently nostalgia-colored package. They didn’t mean much to me but they cannot be borne any ill will. They were as sturdy and reassuring and unworthy of criticism as a speckled linoleum floor. I feel certain that they would have bored me plenty as a kid. To an adult, such a warm boredom can be its own reward.

Let me mention the occasional narrative subtitles that don’t correspond to anything, which have been present in all three. I read that in the original US release of the first episode, William Holden’s voice was added to help connect the dots for foolish westerners, but there is no such voice to be heard here, in any language. Are these subtitles replacements for unseen Japanese subtitles, or are they just bold editorial additions by the translators? I want to believe they’re the former; they feel like they fall in places where the movie has intentionally left space for them. In any case, they were helpful.

Trivia: this is the movie from whence the “he’s so amazing that he can catch flies with chopsticks” thing comes. The Karate Kid just up and lifted it.

Farewell, Ikuma Dan. I suspect we won’t be hearing from you again. I understand you were a very successful opera composer. And why not. My listeners at home will be relieved to learn that for the third go-round, he reworked the theme to reflect Musashi’s newfound maturity, and so this, your Criterion Collection track 16, is actually different music from the preceding two. Hooray! Main title.

Okay, now that we’re at the end I’ll offer you this: it turns out that you can watch all three of these movies online, at a site that seems to agree with me that they epitomize the “movie that happens to be on TV.” One, two, three. Knock yourself out.