ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY (1947) /

Kurosawa has taken a simple, common event that many have done and turns it into a physical and emotional adventure. A simple date between a man and a woman set in very early post war Japan and what it means to be building a life together at that time.He is a returned soldier trying to deal with a new Japan. He has lost the dream of serving his emperor and is now living the nightmare of a defeated and destroyed Japan. It seems like he is a man with little hope of any sort of a future. Yet he is engaged.His fiancee however is trying to build a life togeher for them. Not only does she have to care for herself but she is also trying to get her fiance to look ahead to a getter life together.The detail that Kurosawa shows is sobering. He is wearing a threadbare suit. She is wearing shoes that are falling apart. There are ruins all around them - evidence of a destroyed Japan. But there are bright spots too. They meet some children and for a few minutes he is playing baseball with them and she is cheering them on. For a moment he is happy until a broken window ends the game. How many Americans can relate to this scene? I can - up to and including the broken window. The kids scatter and he pays for the window and the adventure continues.They come across a model home. She wants to see it and he is not interested. Again, she gets him interested in what life can be like. The cost of the house is beyond them but it gives them a few moments to dream of a better future.This movie has more events. They go to his miserable little apartment and have a fight. They look for another apartment to live together in without succcess. His meeting a friend in what is probably a black market club. The hurry through the rain to a concert to hear Schubert's Unfinished Symphony only to see the last few cheap seats bought up by a scalper. He tries to get tickets and in the ensuing fight with the scalper, looses. They end up in a small clearing where this time, he comes to life. He talks of his dreams, he gives an imaginary performance of Schubert's work. They are both laughting and having fun. The movie ends with them planning the next date.This is a sobering movie. It is about a Japan that existed 58 years ago. It is a Japan those of us born after 1945 know nothing about. Kurosawa's charecters probably typify the young men and women of that time. He is trying to rebuild a life for himself and she is trying to build a future that is for both of them.Given the post war time frame and it being the height of the US occupation of Japan, there are no Americans in the film - not even the jeeps of the occupation forces are seen. This is a film about Japanese lives only.The movie is not a happy ending. They make palns for their date the following sunday but you come away wondering if they will be able to make it. Thre are many obstacles ahead of them - does he have the will to live to get over them? You don't really know.This is an impressive film. It is a sobering film. It is a film worth watching. I recommend it to everyone with an interest in Japan and the occupation period of Japanesehistory. I think it is one of Kurosawa's best films. It is unfortunate that it is not more widely known.

We have heard the stories what it was like here after the war against the Japanese but seldom, if ever, do we get to have a peek into the society and the day to day life of the defeated Japanese, the average person as they try to continue with their lives interrupted by the war and the destruction of both their social and physical strutures. This movie was made at the time depicted and within the structure of the Allied censorship so there is no anti-Americanism but the anger for the defeated Japanese military imperalism is clearly just below the surface. This film was intended to rally the people to keep moving forward towards a better day. I rated this 4/5 stars only because it was made during a period of censorship and "stuff" had to be left out. It would otherwise rate a easy "5" stars.

Good buy.

I loved this film. It is sometimes painful to watch, and its uneveness shows that Kurasawa was not yet the master he ultimately became. Still, his talent for providing windows into the human soul is still awesomely displayed, and gives us the chance to experience the reality of the protagonists' lives to an extent that is almost scary.The film's title is ironic. It is set in the ruins of Tokyo a year after World War II ended. A young engaged couple is trying to build a new life among the burned out remnants of buildings and rampant corruption. Their struggle is not only against the external damage of the war but also its moral and spiritual effects on society and ultimately themselves.The main characters are two impoverished office workers attempting to find a little joy on the only day they can spend together each week. They have only 35 yen between them to escape their daily grind, just a few dollars in today's money.Yuzo is a soldier returned from the war going through an emotional roller coaster ride as he tries to rise above his ghastly experiences overseas and his struggle to make a living in the present. Masako, his fiancee, tries to keep him from losing hope altogether by being relentlessly cheerful. But the cheerfulness barely conceals her efforts to find her own sense of hope as she deals with the dark experiences of living through firebombings, poverty, and corruption in Japanese society during the war and immediately after. Their effort to find a happy conclusion to their day together mirrors their struggle to somehow acheive their dream of a happy family life without sacrificing their essential moral goodness to the corrupt efforts to survive to which others around them have succumbed.The scene near the end, where Masako breaks the fourth wall and asks the audience for encouragement as Yuzo attempts to conduct an imaginary orchestra, does mar the movie somewhat. It seems that Kurasawa is still experimenting with the appropriate level of involving the audience emotionally, and he has overstepped considerably here. But even as we wince at Masako's pleas to applaud, we are reminded that the audience she was addressing when the movie was first presented in Japan probably including many couples on a cheap date, who were trying to rebuild their lives just as she and Yuzo were.These days we remember Japan's postwar rebuilding mainly through its incredibly successful outcome. But this movie and the couple's efforts to rebuild their lives without succumbing to the corruption around them, gives a rare window into the devastation experienced by a modern society that was defeated in a pointless war, and the spiritual wreckage it left behind.