"The past emerges alive in Japanese art because it has never properly, in the Western sense, died," Donald Richie wrote. This idea in part explains the beauty and immediacy of a film like Rikyu, based on the lore about the sixteenth-century tea master. Rikyu perfected the tea ceremony as an aesthetic synthesis of architecture, pottery, calligraphy, drama; as a retreat, and an encounter. Rikyu's influence on the nobility was profound, though his fate was tragic: as tea master for the warlord Hideyoshi, this humble genius (as played by veteran actor Rentaro Mikuni) was both revered and feared, a victim of Hideyoshi's contradictory aspirations for power and spiritual self-control. Director Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman of the Dunes) has an appreciation for art and the function of images that permeates this film about the conflict between creation and destruction. He orchestrates both an engrossing drama and a retreat from it-war, though never depicted, is all around; violence, a constant threat to the reflective moment. Note: In November we hope to present another interpretation of Rikyu in the film Death of a Tea Master, directed by Kei Kumai.