Dodes'ka-den

Dodes'ka-den
Directed by	Akira Kurosawa
Written by	Akira Kurosawa
Starring	Yoshitaka Zushi Kin Sugai Toshiyuki Tonomura
Music by	Tōru Takemitsu
Distributed by	Toho
Release date(s)	October 31, 1970 (Japan) June 9 1971 (USA)
Running time	140 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Dodesukaden (どですかでん^?) is a 1970 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's [pen name of Satomu Shimizu] book Kisetsu no nai machi (The Town Without Seasons).

Plot

The film focuses on the lives of a variety of characters who happen to live in a rubbish dump. The first to be introduced is a mentally challenged boy who lives in a world of fantasy in which he is a tram conductor. He is both the tram and the tram driver and follows a set route and schedule through the dump; his dedication to the fantasy is fanatical. The film title refers to a Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound made by a tram or train while in motion ( "Do-desu-ka-den do-desu-ka-den do-desu-ka-den"). The sound is made by the boy as he makes his daily faux-tram route through the dump. Because of the simplicity of the set, the film has the likeness of a play. True to Akira Kurosawa's style, the inquisitive viewer will find an interesting range of virtues and flaws in the twenty or so characters, and the usual A.K. unspoken request, "Please consider" type social comment. The film was shot on an actual dump in Tokyo.

Production

Dodesukaden was Kurosawa's first color film, and he took full of advantage of the new medium. After the success of Red Beard, it took Kurosawa five years before this film appeared. Very few of the actors from Kurosawa's stock company of the 1950s and 1960s were in it, and most of the cast were relatively unknown. Dodesukaden was unlike anything Kurosawa had made before, and was critically panned in Japan despite earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film in the 44th Academy Awards. Dodesukaden was a financial failure and came during the worst possible time in Kurosawa's life. When it was filmed, Kurosawa had been going through a lull in his career and personal life—he was finding it increasingly difficult to obtain financing despite the critical and financial success of his previous films, and rumors about his deteriorating mental health made matters worse.^{[citation needed]} Dodesukaden was only made by the cooperation and co-producing of three other Japanese directors, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi, and Kon Ichikawa.

Its critical failure sent Kurosawa into a deep depression, and in 1971 he attempted suicide. Despite having slashed himself over 30 times with a razor, Kurosawa survived his suicide attempt; however, he would not return to filmmaking for five years, releasing Dersu Uzala in 1975.

External links

• Dodesukaden (Japanese) at the Japanese Movie Database
• Dodes'ka-den at the Internet Movie Database