FILM.
YOJIMBO
1969 | DIRECTED BY AKIRA KUROSAWA
Had a strange experience with this one having never seen it but knowing exactly what happens because of Fistful of Dollars.
So I can't be objective about how engaging the plot is... I took two days to finish it but through no fault of Yojimbo's I was never in suspense.
What I can say is that it got me thinking about memorable images and beautiful images and how they're not the same.
Dollars has a fistful of memorable imagery: the saloon sign dismount, the graveyard shootout, the bulletproof saunter. It's all highly stylized and attention-grabbing but "beautiful" isn't the aesthetic category you'd plunk it in.
Yojimbo has its own share of memorable imagery — see the dog with a human hand in its muzzle or the watchtower scene. But more often it's simply beautiful, in the literal Latin sense bellitas, pleasing to the senses.
Everything about the composition — arrangement, symmetry, proportion, ratio, line, movement — just feels so good to look at. Scene after scene of virtuosic framing and blocking is viscerally satisfying.
But I couldn't tell you what I saw beyond some generic description like "masterfully shot interiors." I already don't really remember.
Whereas the not-beautiful striking imagery of Dollars is burned into my brain. Which is why for my money I'd watch it over Yojimbo.
But of course we all should watch both.