Maksim Gorky is turning Japanese

Another of the many foreign films I had sitting on my DVR was another Akira Kurosawa movie: The Lower Depths.

The opening credits mention it being based on a play by Russian playwright Maksim Gorky, although the action has been moved from early 20th century Russia to 19th century Japan. The action is mostly in a rooming house that looks a lot like it could substitute for the tenement neighborhood of Dodes'ka-den a dozen years later in Kurosawa's career. Osugi is a middle-aged woman who rents out alcoves around a large common area, the alcoves curtained off which is the only privacy the renters get.

Among the renters is an older tinker whose wife is terminally ill and everybody knows it; an alcoholic actor who's drunkien himself into a lack of ability to memorize lines; several men who gamble; and a thief Sutekichi (Toshiro Mifune) who fences the things he steals with Osugi's husband. Osugi likes Sutekichi more than her own husband, but she's also got a sister Okayo who develops feelings for him.

Into all this comes a much older man, Kahei, claiming to be a pilgrim traveling through the region. He has a bit of ability to put people at ease, and also to get in the middle of people's disputes and defuse things, but everybody also wonders where he's really what he's claiming to be. Everybody gets their day in the sun in terms of plot lines, although the biggest one involves Sutekichi since Mifune is the biggest star in the cast.

For me, The Lower Depths was a bit tough to come up with an assessment of, in part because of the lack of an overriding plot. I already mentioned Dodes'ka-den, which I watched first, and that was deliberate because there are certainly some similarities between the two films thematically. But The Lower Depths feels like it moves even slower, and is more philosophical.

Fans of foreign films will probably enjoy The Lower Depths, although if I were recommending Kurosawa I'd probably start off with something else, probably One Wonderful Sunday.