After enjoying his swift solo directing debut Sanshiro Sugata (1943-also reviewed) I decided to discover who Akira Kurosawa thought was the most beautiful.
View on the film:
Marching onto the screen with an "Attack and destroy the enemy" opening title card, the screenplay by writer/directing auteur Akira Kurosawa lays the propaganda on thick, as the women workers request for the factory bosses to raise their demand for a increase in production quota to be higher then the original 50% increase ordered,being met by dialogue of all the women and the bosses saying that females are too weak to match the 100% production increase their male co-workers are asked to do (who are presented as silent macho types, who do the job with ease,no questions asked!)
Not raising a murmur about the workers getting an increase in pay or better working conditions,Kurosawa has the main romance of the film,be a love of keeping the war machine rolling, pulling over-ripe Melodrama from Watanabe breaking down at the fear of she and her co-workers not hitting their production target for a war they are blindly loyal towards (with even a broken foot not slowing a worker down from showing she remains faithful to the war effort.)
Starting a major trend he would continue with,in the cast and crew living (and working) in a real factory called Nippon Kogaku in Hiratsuke, director Kurosawa (who also met his future wife, actress Yoko Yaguchi on the set) & cinematographer Joji Ohara drill a militarism atmosphere into proceedings.
Kurosawa's distinctive screen-wipes land on wide-shots of the factory workers,giving them the appearance of a army marching forward on the production line,backed by the brass army score from his regular composer of this period Seiichi Suzuki ,as the factory workers declare that the most beautiful thing they see,is building for the war.
View on the film:
Marching onto the screen with an "Attack and destroy the enemy" opening title card, the screenplay by writer/directing auteur Akira Kurosawa lays the propaganda on thick, as the women workers request for the factory bosses to raise their demand for a increase in production quota to be higher then the original 50% increase ordered,being met by dialogue of all the women and the bosses saying that females are too weak to match the 100% production increase their male co-workers are asked to do (who are presented as silent macho types, who do the job with ease,no questions asked!)
Not raising a murmur about the workers getting an increase in pay or better working conditions,Kurosawa has the main romance of the film,be a love of keeping the war machine rolling, pulling over-ripe Melodrama from Watanabe breaking down at the fear of she and her co-workers not hitting their production target for a war they are blindly loyal towards (with even a broken foot not slowing a worker down from showing she remains faithful to the war effort.)
Starting a major trend he would continue with,in the cast and crew living (and working) in a real factory called Nippon Kogaku in Hiratsuke, director Kurosawa (who also met his future wife, actress Yoko Yaguchi on the set) & cinematographer Joji Ohara drill a militarism atmosphere into proceedings.
Kurosawa's distinctive screen-wipes land on wide-shots of the factory workers,giving them the appearance of a army marching forward on the production line,backed by the brass army score from his regular composer of this period Seiichi Suzuki ,as the factory workers declare that the most beautiful thing they see,is building for the war.