Where Keisuke Kinoshita’s first four films were made under wartime conditions (political & military policies to greater or lesser extent either sold, excused or put to the side), what a difference Unconditional Surrender made. Questioning authority, once finessed away, now the main topic. Specifically, the cost of war on a liberal-minded family of intellectuals and artists favorably inclined toward The West. Opening at Christmastime 1943 as ‘Silent Night’ is played on the piano and sung by the family before a bit of Chopin played by a conscriptee one last time before he reluctantly begins military service. One pacifist son has written a mildly critical article that’s enough to get him arrested while the youngest hopes to leave school early to become a war pilot. A daughter is unofficially engaged to an unwilling draftee while a conservative Aunt & Uncle (a grafting Colonel stationed in Tokyo) move in after their house is bombed. Simply set within the home of the widowed mother (Haruko Sugimura whom you’ll recognize from TOKYO STORY/’53), we move on to 1944, then two segments in 1945, before and after war’s end. The four-act Chekhovian structure, another Western cultural reference, unmissable. The Uncle & Aunt get their comeuppance, the family loses sons but survives. And while it’s fascinating to see a film focused on this subset household lined up to resist the war, you do wonder how true to life this is or whether it’s just been careful designed to work hand-in-hand with new censorship/propaganda edicts.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Akira Kurosawa, who would later start a short-lived film company with Kinoshita, was more roundabout bringing similar concerns to his first post-war effort, NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH/’46) https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/04/waga-seishun-ni-kuinashi-no-regrets-for.html
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