O Intendente Mizoguchi

Já faz aproximadamente uns dois meses que eu vi o Intendente Sansho (1954), de Kenji Mizoguchi. A minha reação não foi muito diferente da grande maioria dos afortunados que se dispuseram a despender duas preciosas horas na companhia desse mestre japonês: pra soltar o verbo mesmo, fiquei embasbacado. Estupefato e perplexo são duas palavras muito comportadas e bem menos dramáticas, incapazes de carregar a emoção, intensidade e energia que o filme desperta.

Nenhum texto que eu escrevesse seria capaz de dar conta do recado da forma como eu gostaria. O filme exige um ensaio e não apenas uma postagem curta de blog. Eu li algumas resenhas na internet, todas extensas, e nenhuma passagem me chamou tanto a atenção como a que segue abaixo do crítico americano Jim Emerson, publicada em 1984. A rigor, ele aproveita uma reflexão feita pelo crítico inglês Robin Wood. Independente de quem seja o autor da atenta observação (que pode ser outro além desses), é daquelas que iluminam um filme inteiro. Pena que só quem assistiu o Intendente Sansho poderá compreender: a relação que o filme estabelece (fruto da visão de Mizoguchi) entre o fogo/homem e a água/mulher. No cerne da questão.

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By Jim Emerson

In “Sansho”s remarkable opening shot, Mizoguchi divides the frame into a yin and yang of sunlight and shadow. Critic Robin Wood has invoked this Oriental Idea of light and dark, active and passive forces which together create a whole, to discuss “Sancho”s water and fire imagery. Fire is often associated with action, anger and destruction, and is almost always “male”: the torches of Sancho’s search party, the branding-iron fire, the destruction of Sancho’s estate. On the other hand, fire also cooks food and keeps the wolves away.

Water is a life force flowing throughout the film, primarily associated with the never-ending journey of life, with natural passivity, with women, and especially with Mother. But water also separates Zushio and Anju from Tamaki. It seems unfair to even try to talk about the rich and resonant water images in "Sansho" because the images themselves are so potent they cannot be reduced to linear, language-based concepts of "meaning." Nevertheless: water drips from a tree-trunk (and is echoed with liquid purity in the soundtrack music) as Namiji lies, her life ebbing away, in a graveyard. Anju gives her an umbilical tendril to cling to, which is attached to a stone image "responsive to prayers." Namiji is to be left here to become part of this landscape, her body decomposing into the soil with the living, water-carrying roots and vines, the cold rocks, and the bones of those who have preceded her. The dripping begins only when Zushio reclaims her from this grave. In the separation/kidnapping scene on the lake, the children's nurse, another surrogate mother, is drowned fighting to rejoin the children. Her death is recalled in Anju's suicide, one of the most beautiful and poetic (specifically haiku-like) moments in all of cinema. Anju descends slowly, gracefully, and resolutely into the water, sinking into her reflection until she is swallowed up. Concentric ripples on the otherwise smooth surface of the water spread throughout the frame. Cut to a haloed image of a Buddha. Anju is assimilated into the land- and water-scape; the ripples of her life and death continue to spread, her sacrifice making possible Zushio's (and Namiji's) escape and salvation. Her death fulfills her greatest desire in life. Anju leaves behind her an open gate, as did her father: in death, she does not entirely cut herself off from the world of this transient life. On the contrary, she passes through that portal into another life, and her immersion in water is seen as a spiritual/mystical reunion with her mother, a return to the womb, a rebirth. Mother's song ("Anju, Zushio, how I long for you,") reverberates over the ripples on the water.

When Zushio arrives as Sado in search of his mother, he is told that she has either jumped from the cape into the ocean (presumably from the spot where we have seen her sing her song of longing) or was engulfed by a recent tidal wave along with many others. Zushio's quest culminates at the shores of the great sea, where all rivers eventually lead. "You have followed the natural course" -- his father's path -- and it has led him to manhood and to reunion with his family. Mizoguchi's camera rises from this intensely, almost unbearably emotional scene to gaze out past mother and son at the now-tranquil sea. One senses in the deep waters which fill the horizon the presence of the entire family in the same frame-space -- Anju, Father, the nurse. The camera turns, peering down at the tiny figure of the man harvesting seaweed on the vast beach. In the aftermath of the tidal wave, out of that oceanic graveyard which envelops most of the earth, he gathers the food, and fertilizer, necessary for those who carry on in "this transient life."