A Comedy Within A Tragedy

     Hey all! If you missed out on the Drunken Angel last night, make sure to check it out some other time! It's such a wonderful film!
I think that I might have missed out on a lot of the symbolism because I'm unfamiliar with the Japanese culture, but all in all I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I can't really tell whether it was meant to delight or challenge, though, and maybe it's a bit of both. 
     The story follows a doctor who invests a lot into his patients (perhaps too much) and tries to help them get better. There is this one particular patient, however, who the doctor constantly pursues and pursues. The patient is a macho thug who doesn't want to admit he's sick, and they chase each other around, poking at and annoying each other to no end. No matter how much the doctor nags his patient to try to overcome his TB infection, the thug constantly pushes him away. In the end, the thug ends up dying because of his sickness and because he got into a fight with another mafia member.
     Though tragic, the entire movie was so beautifully filmed; Kurosawa really had a knack for camera shots. Some of the details or angles in the scenes were marvelous. In addition to the visual beauty of the film, there were also some funny jokes and phrases put into the movie to lighten up the mood. 
     The one main thing I took away from this movie is that you don't have to be perfect to try to heal people. The doctor was a drunk, and yet he went out of his way to try and help his patient so he could get better. It's a lesson I'm going to try to live by from now on, because sometimes when I try to help someone I feel unworthy of doing so because of all of my flaws. We're not perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't help each other out.