The first time I watched this movie, the bunraku puppets had receded into my sub-consciousness until right before Sawako and Matsumoto trudged up over that hill in the snow and saw the costumes hanging on the clothesline. Right before that scene, I suddenly thought, wow, they look like the puppets. No sooner had I had that thought, but Kitano cuts to the image of the bunraku puppets superimposed on the clothesline. I was much amazed that the timing of the film perfectly matched my own growing awareness.
At what point did you come to see the bound beggars as puppets?
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I didn't get the puppet thing. The bunraku performance was meaningless to me, so I never saw a way in which the characters matched the puppets, other than their clothes.
What was it all about?
I thought Sawako was limping for a short time and thought she would collapse until they both seemed jerky going up the hill. I made the puppet connection then, too. I didn't think it was necessary for the director to do the superimposing, especially when he cuts to the puppets again after that.
I might have been expecting it, given the opening.
I suspected something was up when I noticed that their clothes kept changing. And her gait signaled something, too. But I didn't make the puppet connection directly until the clothesline scene.
I thought that scene was very interesting because it was like not only did we make the connection, but they seemed to make the connection, too, as though it were a moment of self-awareness, as in at some point (the moment of the betrayal?) their lives weren't really their own anymore, but became bound to each other and something else — had a predetermination, a fate, about them as strong as if a puppetmaster were controlling them.
At the time I didn’t realize why I suddenly knew they were the puppets, but I see from your comments that it must have been their gait—they started moving like the bunraku dolls.
I like you idea, Kc, that that was a moment of self-awareness. Because soon after that they go to the site of the engagement party where Sawako finally, in some way, realizes that Matsumoto is not just the guy on the other end of the rope, but is the man she once loved and who proposed to her. But that makes possible the realization that he is also the man who betrayed her.
But that makes possible the realization that he is also the man who betrayed her.
Well said, DW. Well said.
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