CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Vihren Mitev It is easy to recognize classic when you see it. The way in which is made, the values that rises. To me Kurosawa is like Dostoevsky of the novels.Movie shot mainly in a room. But a room full of different representatives of the lower depths as it is the other title of the movie. Every of them presenting to us different story of falling to these depths.About ups and downs, about how pitiful people can be, to have no will, imagination, faith, hope and love. About that there is no one that will pray for us and about that sometimes we do not need praying, we need actions. About disappointment, impudence, weak-willed. About alcoholism and misery. About people which exist in this forms even now.About holiness, kindness, wisdom. About well-wishing and the sense of eternal journey. About how everyone has parts of his spiritual world that he wish they were gone. About how because of them we can be something much more in the future.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/

birthdaynoodle The Criterion Collection offers two different film versions of "The Lower Depths": one made in 1936 by Jean Renoir and another one made in 1957 by Kurosawa. The two directors never worked together on either film. In fact, they only met once in their lives, many years later. Both films are based on Russian writer Maxim Gorky's 1902 play, which describes life in a miserable slum where most characters have lost all sense of hope. Renoir deals with this serious subject matter in a much more humorous and amusing way than Kurosawa, whose film is slower, decidedly somber and a lot more difficult to digest. While Renoir's work takes the viewer in and out of the slums, Kurosawa doesn't allow one to see beyond the wretchedness of the underworld. Both films are great, but it was probably Kurosawa's which left a more durable and deeper impression on me.

anak_d "Donzoko" does not rank among Akira Kurosawa's finest films, but that doesn't mean it should be dismissed, considering the quality of his body of work.Not many films have explored the moral decadence of humanity in face of poverty such as "Donzoko". It reminds us of how most humans are, deep down, only worried about themselves and their own worldy pleasures.The inclusion of the "Old Man" gives the film an almost Buddhist insight into the situation of the slum, which helps painting its extremely intriguing - even if limited - canvas.7.7/10

KFL Having watched Kurosawa's retelling of Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot" a couple weeks ago, and come away feeling that one viewing was already a bit too much, I was not expecting much from this. After all, Gorky is generally regarded as a notch or three below Dostoyevsky.But whereas "The Idiot" did not begin to mesh with a Japanese idiom, "The Lower Depths" fits in very well indeed. Much of the film involves the hopes, dreams, schemes and machinations of a handful of characters, all fixated on escaping the tenement and its soul-numbing poverty.An enigmatic old man who appears one day and spends some time in the hovel has a salutary effect on several of the residents, merely by dint of a level of kindness and sympathy that any of us would take for granted. When he leaves, the spark of compassion he has kindled dies quickly. Yet before he arrives and after he has left, there nonetheless remains a minimal spirit of camaraderie. I have not read Gorky's novel, but the "depths" here may (be taken to) refer to this bare-minimum level of feeling for one's fellow paupers.Running through the script is the theme of lies and (self-)deception, and how they can ease the bitter reality that society's outcasts must face every day. This above all works well here, for the Japanese themselves have a utilitarian (so to speak) view of truth and falsehoods. The hoary Japanese adage "uso mo houben", often rendered "a white lie can be expedient", could have been a tagline for this movie; for the alcoholic ex-actor and several others have little other than self-delusion to help them get through another day.Kurosawa manages to inject a measure of droll comedy while keeping the grim facts unprettified, showing us how the luckless souls at the very bottom of society grasp at the slimmest of hopes and somehow manage (...or don't manage) to keep on going. Superb.