198 words about Seven Samurai

This is a movie about multiples. A village of dozens seeks seven samurai to fight 40 bandits. Whenever possible, we see everyone, or at least lots of ones, arranged in widescreen tableaux. I, I, I, I, I, forming one sinuous them. Cityfolk reconstitute themselves in real-time to form arenas around dueling swordsmen. Women gawp behind transparent walls in the frozen intrigue of a Caravaggio. Bandits come caterwauling out of a burning fort, thrashing in the mud, all movement. Nothing happens individually and everyone goes for broke. The nearest comparison I can think of is the War Boys in Fury Road, a team of dozens of stuntmen who trained together so intensely and for so long that they ended up attaining an almost elemental flow across the screen. But the purpose of the multiples in Seven Samurai is more varied and aesthetic rather than merely (“merely”) kinetic. The crowds tell the story: each beat written across the movement of many. Ultimately it comes down to crude math. Four samurai die, one for every 10 bandits, so how many villagers live to see another harvest? It ends with one final crowd shot, still at last, graves dotting a hillside.