1944 ‘一番美しく’ Directed by Akira Kurosawa
The stories of several young women who work in a 'precision optical instruments' factory during the second World War. Despite illness, injury, and tremendous personal hardship, the women persevere in their tasks, devoted to their work and their country's cause.
Takashi Shimura Shôji Kiyokawa Ichirô Sugai Takako Irie Yôko Yaguchi Sayuri Tanima Sachiko Ozaki Shizuko Nishigaki Asako Suzuki Haruko Toyama Aiko Masu Kazuko Hitomi Shizuko Yamada Itoko Kôno Emiko Rei Haruko Mii Minori Toyohara Eiko Hirayama Harue Yamashita Mineko Mashiro Isuzu Miyakawa Michiko Oikawa Teruko Kato Akitake Kôno Unpei Yokoyama Chieko Nakakita Koyuri Tanima
Ichiban utsukushiku, A Mais Bela, Самые красивые
Theoretically, I should hate this. This is, basically, a propaganda film for an imperialist, belligerent nation. It's almost absurd the lengths the characters go to to give of themselves for the state, and their reasons for this--to support the men fighting the war--certainly puts it into a context that makes this level of sacrifice seem disturbing. The militarism of the imperial state is one of the most horrifying aspects of the concept of human government, and this film openly supports it.
It also has the distinctly unpleasant plot point that the women admit they can't produce as well as the men. It's just accepted, completely and totally, that as women, they would not be able to fashion lenses as fast…
Factory workers overcoming all obstacles to meet production quotas! What a film!
If someone had shown me Kurosawa’s first four films and said ‘this is one of the best directors ever’ I would’ve laughed them out the room. I’m so glad he managed to improve.
This early Kurosawa film is often knocked on the basis of its obvious propaganda aspects. The need to submerge the women into the collectivist ideology of war time doesn’t fit well at all with Kurosawa’s individualist temperament and I think this mismatch is the major drawback here (much more than the sour propaganda on itself). At same time, the film is a good deal more sensitive towards its factory workers than descriptions might suggest and all those close-ups of his actresses unlock a side of Kurosawa’s art that he rarely allow to show quite this much.
Propaganda films that were released within a time of war can be easily mistaken as war films, and that is why they interest me far more than they instill a feeling of disgust. There can be no individuality or personal passion within the parameters of war time, there can be no time for self and soul, only war, only productivity. What some may call patriotic I would call terrifying. 'living' like this is not 'living', this is the hell of war just not the one we like to imagine. The notion that a country would see something like this and immediately rally towards adhering to its ideas is utterly perplexing. Little known fact I like to dish out at all the parties; Kurosawa began his career as a horror director.
In contrast to his debut Sugata Sanshiro, Akira Kurosawa’s sophomore feature - The Most Beautiful - falls squarely within the realm of wartime propaganda. I suppose one shouldn’t read much into this fact as it is common knowledge that the Japanese government was adamant about not allowing anything past its ruthless censorship and, hence, he was effectively hogtied.
However, even the most ridiculous constraints can be overcome and this is where Kurosawa’s filmmaking talent would start shining through, because while this is a piece of patriotic rah-rah meant to drum up support for the war effort, the way Kurosawa captured this story about factory women and their dedication to work also managed to illuminate a more general aspect of the…
To watch films from prior eras, especially films made under the auspices of wartime governments that were opposed to your own, once upon a time, is to allow history into your heart. I unstick myself from the present, from its color and vfx, its swooshing trailers and clickbait, its Top Tens, its endless regress into Disney's cosmic gullet—and finally, from compulsively opting-in to the caffeinated onrush of the cultural present.
Strapped into the vise of wartime censors, Kurosawa's second feature is haunted by an oppressive productivity graph that recurs over and over, reminding us that the only narrative needle his characters are trying to move is whether or not they make their emergency production quota at a military optics factory…
Factory workers overcoming all obstacles to meet production quotas! What a film!
If someone had shown me Kurosawa’s first four films and said ‘this is one of the best directors ever’ I would’ve laughed them out the room. I’m so glad he managed to improve.
The strength of women in unparalleled.
But let’s be real this is a propaganda film.
KUROSAWA WATCHDOWN #2
Just as THE LEGO MOVIE transcends the idea of product placement, so does THE MOST BEAUTIFUL transcend the idea of the propaganda film. This film, made to drum up morale for the Japanese war effort, is certainly sanitized and romantic but it is also way more nuanced and sensitive than it has any business being, and certainly the most interesting piece of pro-war entertainment I have ever seen.
More than anything else, it solidifies within me one thing I have always felt to be true: every film is some sort of propaganda, even if it purports to have no political ideology whatsoever.
What, can't women thrive beyond men in factory work without it somehow turning into a beauty contest? Folks, you're just going to have to take what progressivism you can get with Axis Power propaganda. Whatever you're opinion of the weapons getting these optical attachments, the factory making them has been falling on hard times since a big chunk of Japan's male population left to defend their culture from westerners (Not the German or Italian ones, mind you). As demands for productivity grow, the remaining male workers look to double their efforts, while the women aspire for a 70% increase because they're, to be sexistly honest... much smarter. Even then, they're enduring overwhelming exhaustion and disease, to say nothing of being…
In contrast to his debut Sugata Sanshiro, Akira Kurosawa’s sophomore feature - The Most Beautiful - falls squarely within the realm of wartime propaganda. I suppose one shouldn’t read much into this fact as it is common knowledge that the Japanese government was adamant about not allowing anything past its ruthless censorship and, hence, he was effectively hogtied.
However, even the most ridiculous constraints can be overcome and this is where Kurosawa’s filmmaking talent would start shining through, because while this is a piece of patriotic rah-rah meant to drum up support for the war effort, the way Kurosawa captured this story about factory women and their dedication to work also managed to illuminate a more general aspect of the…
Continuing my early-Kurosawa education after reading his autobiography. This one's mostly interesting as an historical document, both of the director's development and also of civil life during WW2. It's pretty obviously skewed propaganda, if only to get past the censors, who Kurosawa described as overzealous, to put it mildly.
The girls in the film give very naturalistic performances, reflecting the work the director gave them in pre-production (living together in a dorm, actually going out on drum and fife marches, etc). Supposedly most of them gave up their acting careers afterwards to become housewives, telling Kurosawa later that it was because they finally had a chance to experience a "normal" life and realized this was what they really wanted. Even…
Raymond Williams talked about the ability of a text to have a meaning that emerges over time. This meaning can be repressed by the artist and a resulting unconscious commentary on a time period can exist. I see this film as being an unintentional commentary on the war effort and I don't know if it matters that it may or may not be fully intentional. It's impactful nonetheless. Also, damn Criterion, you gotta clean this shit up. It's dirty as hell.
Watching a Kurosawa film that begins with plain text on the screen reading “Attack and destroy the enemy” is never a great sign and well, it’s a propaganda film, a right proper Japanese wartime government mandated propoganda film that Kurosawa was strong armed into directing. I sort of hoped that maybe some of Kurosawa’s subversive individualism or classic subtle writing might peak through and make it better but that didn’t happen in any way that could’ve seriously helped.
There’s good craftsmanship here, Kurosawa’s eye for good cinematography is on full display as usual, but the story about Japanese women knee deep in personal hardship as they try and sacrifice every last bit of themselves to facilitate an imperialist governments war…
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