Where I've been and what I've learned along the way…
Red Beard
Akahige
Akira Kurosawa
1965
My all time favorite! Poignant, epic in scope—the best medical coming-of-age film I know of. The story of a medical intern working at a charity clinic in early nineteenth century Japan. The legendary Toshirō Mifune portrays his attending, the titular Red Beard. Also has a great “samurai doctor” scene. Not be be missed!
Philip K. Dick is less well known than other science fiction authors of his generation (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein), but today he enjoys a growing reputation as his novels are adapted to the screen. Of these, A Scanner Darkly is the most recent, the most personal, and perhaps the most important. It is a semi-autobiographical story of drug addiction, corporate greed, and universal surveillance. Several of the characters are based on real people the author knew, and the damage done by drugs is not hypothetical. The story anticipates several developments of the last twenty years: pharmaceutical companies inventing diseases to fit the drugs they produce; a surveillance society with video cameras everywhere; and human beings who are written off by the society they live in.
The 2006 movie sticks close to the original novel, deftly exploiting Dick’s dry humor and sense of the absurd. The action centers around a loose group of “friends” who all share interest in (and possibly addiction to) the ominous “substance D.” In the words of one character, “There’s no week-end warriors on the D. You’re either on it, or you haven’t tried it.”
Brazil
Terry Gilliam
1998
The dystopian’s dystopia!
Brazil is one of my all time favorites. It is the blackest of black comedies, a “knight in shining armor” fantasy, an absurdist allegory, and an existential rant (with a bit of Monty Python thrown in for good measure). What’s not to like?! Set in a world of grey buildings and grey suits, the protagonist Sam Lowery (played pitch perfect by Jonathan Pryce) learns about the law of unintended consequences as his formerly boring life careens out of control.
Beware! There are different versions out there, including the “love conquers all” cut imposed by the studio execs (which of course is not worth watching). Robert De Niro is also great as the guerrilla heating repair man. “We’re all in this together!”