Kurosawa’s Film Noir: Stray Dog at Mercury Cinema – OzAsia Film Festival Review

[JAPAN] Mercury Cinema, Thu 24 Sep The Mercury Cinema’s season of the legendary and influential Akira Kurosawa’s take on film noir continues with a screening of Stray Dog, his 1949 contemporary police drama. Set in the sweltering heat of summer, the film stars Toshirô Mifune and Takashi Shimura as two detectives who form a friendship as they follow a case. Detective Murakami (Mifune) is a rookie cop who is assigned to work with the experienced, older Detective Satō (Shimura) as they attempt to track down a murderer who has stolen the former’s pistol. Both are excellent in this antecedent to the now-common police “buddy” film. Keiko Awaji as Harumi Namiki, the beautiful and vulnerable showgirl, also shines. Although Stray Dog is essentially a crime film, it focuses much of its effort on portraying the lives and times of those people affected by the ongoing events. It also paints a striking picture of post-WWII urban Tokyo; a somewhat heartbroken, defeated and desperate place. Stray Dog also examines the notion that the advent of the same set of circumstances doesn’t always bring about an identical result. Individuals can, and do, react differently when confronted by particular events. The film is shot in black and white and, at 122 minutes’ duration, it is relatively short for a Kurosawa film. However, there are still many lingering scenes and lengthy passages without dialogue or musical score. The film moves quite deliberately, but maintains a pace that allows the tension to build. The soundtrack combines the score with ambient sounds, and gains momentum as the film progresses. It is hard to comment on the script because, as with all subtitled films, it is unclear how much of the nuance of language is lost due to the required economy of aforementioned subtitles. Unless one is fluent in the native tongue, of course. It is a credit to the OzAsia Festival and to the Mercury Cinema that this print of Stray Dog has been sourced and, as a result, audiences have been able to enjoy this interesting and thrilling film. David Robinson