On a crowded bus in teeming downtown Tokyo, rookie policeman Murakami has his gun swiped. Fearful of losing his job, he embarks on a desperate search for the pickpocket. Murakami becomes a lone pilgrim in an underworld seething in the heat of summer and the crush of postwar shortages, rendered divinely hellish by Akira Kurosawa’s odd-angled lensing and staccato editing. The policeman’s anxiety is heightened as reports come in of murders attributed to the stolen pistol; a simple theft becomes a case of murder-by-doppelgänger. Kurosawa acknowledged his debt to French crime novelist Georges Simenon, but Stray Dog is typical of the director’s uncanny ability to mold genre to his own concerns. More than a hard-boiled thriller, Stray Dog is a Dostoyevskian saga of guilt, and expiation, by association.

—Judy Bloch

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.