One Wonderful Sunday

Kurosawa is able to separate himself from what is deemed “neo-realist” by the grace at which his camera moves and interacts with those in the frame. Sure there’s the ruins of the “old Japan”, the pain of ex soldiers but that is almost artifice here. What truly matters is the relationship we see building on screen. The city could be a soundstage and we’d feel the same ups and downs with them but the fact that Kurosawa is able to move between the realities of a Japan destroyed by their own hubris facing a new dawn and the whimsy of cinema is truly a showcase for the budding career of a master. His humanism becoming a core component of his cinema here. A true belief in the power of the lower classes to at least dream, to find love. Will they be successful? Who is to define success ultimately? Their occupiers capitalist obsessions? Reminds me of the dichotomy of whimsy and cynicism of Capra. Where we see mostly happiness but there’s always melancholy lurking under every piece of bombed out rubble