I’ve never actually read The idiot so can’t compare Dostoevsky’s novel to Kurosawa’s adapatation, but have seen this film several times.

Unlike Stray Dog, this movie is cold, cold, cold!!  The origination of the plot for the film is given to us in various ways: some of it is written in third-person narrative; some of it in spoken third-person narrative; and some of it we figure out through the actions of the characters.  I’m not sure I’ve completely followed the purpose of the various forms, but it’s interesting - kind of like reading a novel while simultaneously watching the action unfold in front of you.

The film starts out in written narrative: “Dostoevsky wanted to portray a genuinely good man.  It may seem ironic, choosing a young idiot as his hero, but in this world, goodness and idiocy are often equated.  This story tells of the destruction of a pure soul by a faithless world.”

I’m laying out the plot just to try and get it straight in my mind…

The idiot, Kameda, was accused of war crimes he didn’t commit and was sentenced to death.  At the last minute, the sentence was revoked, and he went crazy from the shock of the pardon.  He developed epileptic dementia and had so many fits he eventually became “an idiot”.  He can’t recall what life was like before his idiocy.

Akama befriends Kameda and tells him about Taeko Nasu, whom he fell in love with because he had been repressed as a child and took one look at Taeko Nasu which immediately released all of those pent up passions.  He stole money from his father to buy her a diamond ring and this so outraged his father he disowned him.  But his father died and so Akama has recently come into his fortune.  Both he and Kameda are headed to Sapporo.  Kameda is going to see Mr. Ono, his only relative, who is tied up in some ugly business regarding Kameda’s ranch, I think.  The military had reported Kameda as officially dead, and it seems that somehow, Mr. Ono sold the ranch through Kayama?  But that has me a bit confused.

Taeko Nasu is apparently a woman of ill-repute.   Supposedly, she’s been Tohata’s mistress since childhood.  Fearing for his reputation, Tohata has offered a dowry of 600,000 to marry her off, but doesn’t really want to let her go.  Taeko Nasu, like Akama, feels like a caged animal.  Akama feels this way because he was forced to repress his emotions, Taeko Nasu because she has been a kept woman since childhood and has likewise has had to repress who she is.

Kayama is about to marry Taeko Nasu in order to get the 600,000 yen dowry and this somehow involves Mr. Ono - maybe because he sold the ranch through Kayama?  I’m not sure.  According to the film, Kayama isn’t really a scoundrel, he’s just an unassertive coward.  Secretly, he’s in love with Ono’s daughter Ayako.

There are lots of twists and turns that keep twisting and turning.

SPOILER WARNING!!

So, Akama ends up with Taeko Nasu, but it isn’t pretty for either one of them.  They look like the Adams Family but with hateful passion rather than joyful, loving passion. The doors creak of their large home creak and everything is dirty and dark.  Really dark.  Kameda ends up in love with Ayako who is likewise in love with him.  But she can’t let go of her jealously toward Taeko Nasu who Kameda also loves, but not in the same way he loves Ayako.  Ayako promises she won’t let her impetuosity get in the way, but of course it does.

Desire, rather than reality, rules the outcome of everyone’s destiny.  Nothing is allowed to be what it is.  Instead, everything is judged on image.  Emotions are repressed and come back to bite in a big way.

Like I said, I haven’t read, The Idiot.  But this sounds a lot like what I know of Dostoevsky’s story.  He was sentenced to death and somehow managed to escape and likewise suffered from epilepsy.   Dostoevsky had some sort of mystical experience during his imprisoned days that made him feel connected to all that is.   He de-magicalized the sacraments and re-framed them within existential terms.   You see a lot of those re-framed sacraments within this film.

The idiot represents Christ and the isolation that is experienced by someone who is “good”.  People recognize the “good”, but they can’t accept it because to accept it requires too deep of a look at their own lives.   Akama’s love is solely based on passion, and this eventually kills Taeko Nasu.  But Kameda’s love for Taeko Nasu is based on the Christian ethic of forgiveness.

This sort of turns the norm around - where the upper class thinks of itself as “good” while the lower classes are “bad”.  This thinking was true in both Japan and Russia (and in the U.S. although the U.S. doesn’t like to acknowledge class differentiation.)

Kurosawa is compassionate toward the suffering of those who get stuck in situations they had little control of but maintains that human beings still control their destiny through the choices they make.  It’s the existential malaise:  we are responsible for who it is we are - no matter our circumstances.  And, what we think of as good and bad has been socially conditioned - it isn’t absolute.   Those who consider themselves to be “good” and superior to those who are “bad” have no right to claim that superiority.  Those deemed “bad” by society remain worthy of compassion and are very often “bad” thanks to the actions of the “good” who refuse to acknowledge their darker sides and what it is they have contributed to the actions they deem unworthy.