Rhapsodies

This week I return to Shakespeare again, specifically Hamlet. Just to clarify, neither of these are technically adaptations of the play, as in they are not using the original script in any way. They are just modern versions… sort of. 

The first film on my list was Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well. 

This tells a story about a company mired in corruption. Soon things get worse as breaking news stories appear, board members are being arrested and committing suicide. It is not clear what is behind it. But most of the evidence points towards the Chief Executive’s secretary Nishi (played by Toshiro Mifune), who is gradually revealed to be the son of the company’s murdered founder, Who is now seeking revenge. 

This film was only very, very loosely based on Hamlet. With Kurosawa only using the broadest strokes of the play to write a story about corporate corruption and revenge. However, the story beats that he uses work quite well.  

I won’t say this will be my favorite Kurosawa film. To be honest none of his modern-day films have really worked for me so far. 

But still, Kurosawa shows off his craft brilliantly with wonderful camera shots that rival all of his great films. I especially liked the scene in the middle where Nishi makes one of his targets believe they are haunted by the ghost of a colleague who is believed to have committed suicide. The way the Kurosawa stages this fake haunting makes me wish that he tried his hands on horror. (Depending on whether Throne of Blood counts or not)

The next film on my list was Let The Devil Wear Black. This one is much closer to the original material and does an excellent job of translating most of the notes of the play into the modern day. Now Jack, the Hamlet figure played by Jonathan Penner is a grad student with a history of mental illness inheriting his father’s company after his death and noticing something fishy going on in all of the usual places.

For the most part, this was a pretty good retelling, most of the elements of Hamlet work well enough in the modern day. I especially liked how a lot more screen time was put on the Hamlet/Ophelia relationship.