The Bad Sleep Well

Minor Kurosawa is the cold pizza of film. The Bad Sleep Well is one I've had trouble with in the past. I essentially blind bought this DVD after renting the film from Netflix and giving up after 30 minutes of watching.

The problem wasn't that the film was bad. The problem was with me. I wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch a 50 year old Japanese film about corporate corruption. I'm not sure how one gets to this frame of mind.

I still think the film is overlong and terribly slow. But Kurosawa films grow on me.

I've written previously about how one has to watch a film at the right time in order to fully appreciate what the director/writer/what-have-you are getting at, and sometimes that involves the viewer getting to a certain point in life. We have that transaction with film — we don't watch passively. We process information. If we can't fully perform the transaction, then we don't understand all or part of the film.

This is not the Kurosawa film to start with, of course. However I appreciate the film for its balance of darkness and slight humor, along with Toshiro Mifune's performance. There's a lot of good here.

Mostly I appreciate that this film will still be in my collection for the day that I'm truly ready.