Found this boxset while browsing in Rasputin’s Music (a competitor to Amoeba Records here in Northern CA) . This is a great series of films for anyone who loves Kurosawa. While there is nary a Samurai in sight, each film dramatizes issues that the Japanese confronted after WW II. As an American living through a major economic catastrophe, under a government that seems determined to wage unending war, imprison foreign nationals and citizens without recourse to the court system, the themes and plots of these films seem all too familiar.
I Live In Fear: Toshiro Mifune plays an elderly industrialist (not always convincingly) who is so utterly terrified of the Atomic Bomb. So much so that he plans to uproot his family as well as his two mistresses and their 4 children (plus on child by a mistress now dead) to Brazil. Naturally his family thinks he is crazy and attempt to have him certified. Trouble is, psychiatric examination shows he is not mentally ill. In fact, as one character puts it, maybe he is the only sane person in Japan, and it’s a society that ignores the real threat of utter destruction that is insane.
No Regrets for our Youth: The daughter of a University professor (who is one of a very few Pacifists) in the 1930s-1940’s lives through the rise and fall of Ultra-Nationalism. I think this film is Kurosawa trying to explain why Japan did the things it did in the 30’s, not only to the rest of the world but Japan as well. There are some utterly chilling scenes where the woman and her ex-lovers’s parents are ostracized by the community as spies and traitors.
Scandal: Mifune is back, this time as a committed artist who is falsely accused by tabloid media of having a love affair with a famous singer. His attempts to clear his name via a lawsuit against the paper are suddenly less important than the trials of his defense lawyer, in a great twist about 1/3 through the film.
One Wonderful Sunday: Boy this one really hit home. A young couple, out of work, with “declining assets” as they say, attempt to go on a date in post war Tokyo. The bitterness, and desperation of these young lovers, as well as the joy they are sometimes able to enjoy, makes this one of my favorite Kurosawa films. (and still no Samurai!)
The Idiot: I have to confess that I only made it through the first Act of this film. More because I dislike the source material (that’s right, I don’t like Dostoyevsky, sue me ). An ex-POW returns home after the war, only to become trapped by the competing desires of the woman he desires and the three other men with whom he competes for her attentions.
What I found striking about this series is how current the themes are. Each one could be remade today and set in America, or Europe for that matter. Alienation from one’s family and society, the destructive power of the Media and their seeming ability to re-create reality to suit their own needs, the pressures economic decline and Nationalism can create, are all issues we still deal with today.
Also, in each film Kurosawa includes a kind of “signature piece”, a breaking of the 4th wall, or an artistic Montage or a hint of German Expressionism in an otherwise naturalistic film. (another example is the strategic use of color in one scene in High and Low).
You also see Kurosawa’s Humanism at work here: with one exception, each of these film’s characters are somewhat redeemed or ‘saved” by the end of film. I find it fascinating that it was in his final years, when Japan has become an economic powerhouse, that Kurosawa despaired and gave up on his Humanistic philosophy.
I’m not doing any of these films justice (they could each support their own discussion thread). If you haven’t seen these films you should seek them out.
I Live In Fear: Toshiro Mifune plays an elderly industrialist (not always convincingly) who is so utterly terrified of the Atomic Bomb. So much so that he plans to uproot his family as well as his two mistresses and their 4 children (plus on child by a mistress now dead) to Brazil. Naturally his family thinks he is crazy and attempt to have him certified. Trouble is, psychiatric examination shows he is not mentally ill. In fact, as one character puts it, maybe he is the only sane person in Japan, and it’s a society that ignores the real threat of utter destruction that is insane.
No Regrets for our Youth: The daughter of a University professor (who is one of a very few Pacifists) in the 1930s-1940’s lives through the rise and fall of Ultra-Nationalism. I think this film is Kurosawa trying to explain why Japan did the things it did in the 30’s, not only to the rest of the world but Japan as well. There are some utterly chilling scenes where the woman and her ex-lovers’s parents are ostracized by the community as spies and traitors.
Scandal: Mifune is back, this time as a committed artist who is falsely accused by tabloid media of having a love affair with a famous singer. His attempts to clear his name via a lawsuit against the paper are suddenly less important than the trials of his defense lawyer, in a great twist about 1/3 through the film.
One Wonderful Sunday: Boy this one really hit home. A young couple, out of work, with “declining assets” as they say, attempt to go on a date in post war Tokyo. The bitterness, and desperation of these young lovers, as well as the joy they are sometimes able to enjoy, makes this one of my favorite Kurosawa films. (and still no Samurai!)
The Idiot: I have to confess that I only made it through the first Act of this film. More because I dislike the source material (that’s right, I don’t like Dostoyevsky, sue me ). An ex-POW returns home after the war, only to become trapped by the competing desires of the woman he desires and the three other men with whom he competes for her attentions.
What I found striking about this series is how current the themes are. Each one could be remade today and set in America, or Europe for that matter. Alienation from one’s family and society, the destructive power of the Media and their seeming ability to re-create reality to suit their own needs, the pressures economic decline and Nationalism can create, are all issues we still deal with today.
Also, in each film Kurosawa includes a kind of “signature piece”, a breaking of the 4th wall, or an artistic Montage or a hint of German Expressionism in an otherwise naturalistic film. (another example is the strategic use of color in one scene in High and Low).
You also see Kurosawa’s Humanism at work here: with one exception, each of these film’s characters are somewhat redeemed or ‘saved” by the end of film. I find it fascinating that it was in his final years, when Japan has become an economic powerhouse, that Kurosawa despaired and gave up on his Humanistic philosophy.
I’m not doing any of these films justice (they could each support their own discussion thread). If you haven’t seen these films you should seek them out.
