This is the darkest, most cynical Kurosawa film I've seen to date. There is no form to the setting we're trapped in. Everything is deliberately closed off and crumbling, cornered by shadows and infected by disease. Only occasionally do flashes of sunlight illuminate this unholy stage, but that's only when we venture outside the pit we're stuck in and realize there are higher regions above us. Part of the challenge is locating where these "lower depths" actually are. Are these the forgotten slums of a world that left behind its homeless? Is it a trash heap prison for sinners? A literal representation of Dante's Inferno? All of the above? Wherever this filthy, grimy space exists, its characters seem incapable of leaving in a way that would make Buñuel laugh. 

Kurosawa took my mind to strange, legitimately scary places. He also made me wonder about messengers in secret clothing, those who surround me trying to impart words of hope in a world blackened by cynicism. I was so moved when the priest said: "Lies are not always evil. Nor is the truth always good." This is the big epistemological statement at the bottom of the pit. When are lies good for people? When is truth disingenuously used to paint false narratives? Nearly all of the characters in this story are existing in a hell so thick it seems impossible for any of them to believe in a narrative of hope, resolve or compassion. The darkness of the pit has eclipsed any light that might clothe their naked despair, causing them to further retreat into a world of alcohol, entertainment, fantasy and illusion. A lot of this cynicism makes sense.

In a world without money, work, privacy or companionship, many, like the gambler, do not have a prayer that things will ever get better, and so they stoically accept their fate as if living inside Newton's mechanical universe. Others, like the samurai, also live without hope: "I take things as I find them and I face the facts." Facing the facts in this world means living beyond the pale of salvation. It means accepting the universe as it is, rather than as one wishes it to be. The tinker responds to the samurai's cynicism: "You and your 'facts.' Here are your facts —no money, no work, and the only thing you can do is starve to death. Does facing facts like this help you at all?" We'll return to this question in a moment. 

Then there are those, like the actor, thief and whore, who believe in hope, or at least some semblance of it beyond the pit. These folks are always looking up with dreams about future lives, or reflecting on past lives, but they're never quite able to pull themselves out of the mire. The actor is weakened by his alcoholism, the thief by his anger, and the whore by her inability to love. The thief laments: "There must be a better life than this." The whore mourns: "Is no one happy in this world —are we all like this?" The desire to escape from the brutal reality they face is not enough. They want stronger motivation, but they each struggle with a weakness of will. Ritchie philosophically observes: "Man is very weak and it is almost impossible to want something enough to make it happen." Are these wretches waiting for Godot, some salvific figure to deliver them from all the surrounding misery and waste?

Enter the priest. 

I'm not quite sure what to make of "gramps." Part of me believes he was once like all these goblins, weak and scornful. Over time, he somehow found a way to either adapt to reality, or transcend its limitations along with all the tortured illusions his peers now face. "I've been thoroughly trampled upon," he says. "That's why I'm soft." Age and experience have polished all his rough edges, filling him now with compassion for his brethren. 

Another part of me believes he's actually a guardian angel on divine assignment, someone on a pilgrimage who chooses, bodhisattva-style, to return to the earth and help struggling mortals on their journey. He can only offer words of wisdom to those who will listen, but he can't force the human mind to see the light if they've adapted themselves to darkness. Maybe he's both of these things. Maybe he's none of these things. Whatever he is, he seems to be the only grounded character who knows what reality is. He imbibes all the dirt and filth these characters wallow in. He gently disarms all their arguments and sarcastic insults. He smiles but almost knows his efforts are in vain, like a god whose only weapon is to suffer alongside his children. The fact that he entered the pit on his own volition and left the same way is the greatest marker of his identity. He possesses true power and freedom. He has the ability to descend and ascend between kingdoms of glory, something the others can only dream about doing. 

"Does paradise really exist?" asks the thief. "It does to those who want it," responds the priest. This is a loaded exchange that returns us now to the dark and hopeless posture of "facing the facts," as earlier heard between the samurai and the tinker. Facing the facts is often touted as a virtue among the cynical, as if suggesting that hope is fraud, hope is nothing more than illusion to comfort the naive. There's a good reason for this, of course. Escaping into fantasy is an easy thing to do. It ignores reality. It lets these characters dwell in Plato's Cave rather than forcing them to accept their stubborn realities. There's another way of interpreting this however. "Facing the facts" might also be a posture that uses the truth in deceitful ways. For example, the truth of the gambler is that he already lives in hell, and he knows it, while the others also live in hell but fantasize about a better world to come. This is nonsense to the gambler. Lies perpetuated by the priest to keep them from facing brutal reality. The gambler, you'll recall, is completely uninvolved with anyone in the story, which is why he's able to easily mock and make comedy out of the dreams of those around him. But to the gambler's cynicism it may be returned: Is hoping for a better, more empowering narrative of humanity an act of cowardice? Is it mere delusion? 

If the facts of this story suggest that there is, as my friend Darren puts it, "no hope, no peace, nothing worth fighting for," is nihilism the only option? Or is this position itself merely the kind of truth that the priest said wasn't good for humanity, and that some lies might actually be better alternatives?

“Does facing facts like this ["no hope, no peace"] help you at all?" asks the samurai. This question interests me for the same reason I consider myself a theist who leans into a culturally religious agnosticism, at times even atheism. Which is to say I share the hope of the priest but exquisitely feel the despair of the pit dwellers, sometimes to the point of making me laugh like the gambler. Saying we live in a cold, indifferent universe is just as absurd as saying we live in a warm, intentional one. I embrace that paradox. I laugh it. I do not feel the need to reconcile it. I prefer living in Keats' world of negative capability, the idea that incompatible, incongruous beliefs can coexist, and that cognitive dissonance is actually a force that keeps us humble in spite of our chronic tendency to dogmatize things. I strongly believe in the mission of the priest to alleviate suffering in whatever way I can, but I'm skeptical of my compassion actually making a difference in the bigger picture. 

As a passionate connoisseur of art, film, literature and storytelling, I believe the priest when he says, "Lies are not always evil. Nor is the truth always good." I must believe this, for fiction is a lie that tells the truth and makes us whole. 

I find myself in contention with every character in this story. The escapism of the whore, the cynicism of the gambler, the vanity of the tinker, the anger of the thief, the misery of the actor, and the hope of the priest. I live on all sides of the spectrum. I feel all sides deeply. Like the gambler, it is true that the amount of pain, misery and suffering in the world has made me jaded, sometimes to the point of going RASHOMON and concluding nothing can be trusted and everything is sham.

To my inner-gambler I retort with my inner-priest: If "reality" and "truth" are nothing more than cold, hard facts that force narratives of despair, what am I to make of the power of hope, faith and fiction to dream unseen things into existence? Isn't there a point at which our "lies" (meaning, our hopes and dreams) become the "truth" (meaning, those things we worked to bring into existence)? Kafka once said it this way: "By believing passionately in something that still doesn't exist, we create it. The non-existent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired." 

Such philosophy is too lofty for the pit dwellers of this story, who are well beyond the fade of optimism, but their fantasies tell us something interesting about the human condition. Perhaps we rage against the cold, cruel, indifferent facts of existence with fantasies, fictions and hopeful narratives in order to either a). soften the blow, or b). expose our facts as really illusions. Why else are we storytellers? Why spin tales at all if nothing matters? If we're spinning tales of despair, we're filling our bowels with compassion (which literally means to feel sorrow and suffer alongside others as we sink this ship down together). If we're spinning tales of hope, we're trusting in better things to come. THE LOWER DEPTHS is an incredible work of art because it allows both options to exist, which shakes me to the core of my soul.

Kurosawa Ranked