Hero's tragic grace

The Twilight Samurai is the most romantic of films. Its hero is an impoverished Samurai (Hiroyuki Sanada) living in rural Japan, nicknamed Squire Twilight because of his melancholy mood, his sooty clothes. His is an unassuming life - he works all day for his Clan accountants, then supplements his income by making little wooden insect cages at night.

When a beautiful young woman of higher rank declares an interest in him, he cannot follow his heart, fearing that she would come to resent his life of relative poverty. He turns her down, and what follows is the unravelling of his entire life, culminating in a dramatic sword fight with a suicidal Clan official.

In the most elegant, modest ways, a warrior society is revealed with its elaborate prejudices and courtesies - routines that slide back through the centuries. The film is packed with detail. We see tea being brewed, plates put away, clothes correctly folded, but never in a static or posed way: all these images move lyrically, like a beautiful lament. There is a seductive timelessness to everything.

As Twilight fishes, or sits up late thinking about taking a wife, his resolve waivering like the flickering candle at his arm, you occasionally wonder what century this is. When someone eventually mentions the word "gun" and positions things in the 1860s, just before the traumatic Meiji Revolution that opened Japan to the rest of the world for the first time, it pulls you up short.

This is director Yoji Yamada's 77th film in a 43-year career, and with relatively few (subtitled) words he makes you care so quickly, and so much, for his protagonist. This Squire Twilight - with his sane, saddened grace followed by dizzying moments of glamorous bravery - is a hero of irresistible, tragic stature.

The Twilight Samurai (Tasagore Seibei)
Cert: cert12A