Retrospective: Ran

The raid on the castle in Akira Kurosawa's Ran marks the moment that cinema fulfills the promise of Battleship Potemkin. Kurosawa chooses to play the scene without sound, with only Tōru Takemitsu's haunting occidental score to accompany the horrors of the battle. Tatsuya Nakadai's Lord Hidetora runs frantically around his castle, witnessing the horrific results of his catastrophic decisions: women committing seppuku, soldiers gunning down civilians, his entire life's work collapsing as his sons usurp his domain. Kurosawa, who made his bones in black-and-white, uses color brilliantly in this sequence, resulting in photography that's both orgiastically violent and hypnotically beautiful.

Nakadai — one of the greatest screen actors ever to live — gives his finest performance as Kurosawa's Lear, a man who never learned how to love or be loved. He can only express himself through acts of power — when his son Saburo loves him enough to be honest with him, Hidetora only sees an insult to his authority. The second he learns, after losing everything, that he is capable of loving his son, it's already too late for him. In a career comprised of masterpieces like Seven Samurai and High and Low, Kurosawa reaches new devastating heights in Ran — as good as cinema gets.