Kurosawa Installment #3
Mar. 4th, 2010 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyThere I was, holding down a nearly empty office between 3:00 and 4:00 PM when it occured to me that tomorrow is a fast day, the first showing of "One Wonderful Sunday" starts at 5:30 (before sundown) and "Ikiru" follows it, which would mean either having a bucket of popcorn for dinner or not eating until after 10 PM. It's also supposed to rain tomorrow and the transbay bridges can be special if visibility or high winds are a factor, particularly after dark. So I checked the contents of my wallet and headed over to Palo Alto tonight instead. I did grab a chai latte and a vegan ginger cookie the size of a salad plate at Peet;s before the show.
I hadn't seen "One Wonderful Sunday" (1947) before and it was a delightful surprise. Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita play two young people with 35 yen between them and a Sunday afternoon to kill. Alternating between the depressing realities of trying to get by in postwar Japan and almost Capra-esque hope, it ends on a positive note as Yuzo sees Masako off on the train with a promise to meet the following Sunday. (DVD renters, this is part of a Criterion boxed set called "Eclipse 7: Postwar Kurosawa.")
"Ikiru" (1952) I had seen previously on cable. A mousy bureaucrat discovers he has terminal stomach cancer and how to live in the time he has left. The wake scene after his death goes on a lot longer than I remembered as far too many members of the city government have to put their two cents in about what happened and why, but this one is all about Takashi Shimura's heart tugging performance. Seven Samurai fans will recognize Isao Kimura (the youngest samurai) in a brief appearance as a sympathetic clinic doctor and Bokuzen Hidari (the rubber faced peasant) as one of the protagonist's coworkers.
I hadn't seen "One Wonderful Sunday" (1947) before and it was a delightful surprise. Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita play two young people with 35 yen between them and a Sunday afternoon to kill. Alternating between the depressing realities of trying to get by in postwar Japan and almost Capra-esque hope, it ends on a positive note as Yuzo sees Masako off on the train with a promise to meet the following Sunday. (DVD renters, this is part of a Criterion boxed set called "Eclipse 7: Postwar Kurosawa.")
"Ikiru" (1952) I had seen previously on cable. A mousy bureaucrat discovers he has terminal stomach cancer and how to live in the time he has left. The wake scene after his death goes on a lot longer than I remembered as far too many members of the city government have to put their two cents in about what happened and why, but this one is all about Takashi Shimura's heart tugging performance. Seven Samurai fans will recognize Isao Kimura (the youngest samurai) in a brief appearance as a sympathetic clinic doctor and Bokuzen Hidari (the rubber faced peasant) as one of the protagonist's coworkers.
