Morning for the Osone Family

It's Christmas Eve of 1943 and the Osone family is celebrating. Junji Masuda, who is engaged to the daughter of the house, Mitsuko Miura, tells her not to wait. She is devastated. Suddenly the police enter, ransack the eldest son's room and arrest him for writing something in which he barely criticizes the government. As the last two years of the war drag on, the two other sons join the armed forces and are killed. Their uncle, Eitarô Ozawa, is a colonel at the central command. He has privilege, he has rank and he enters the house, takes it over, redecorates it and shows contempt for the head of the house, Haruko Sugimura, who silently endures.

For twenty years, film makers were forbidden to criticize the Japanese government or the military. The director of this movie, Keisuke Kinoshita, had already made several propaganda movies. Now, with the militarists out and the Americans under MacArthur in charge, he made this movie, partially to set himself right with the new government. However for the remainder of his career, he would evince again and again the same hatred and cynicism towards authority.

That was in 1946, when KINEMA JUNPO called this the best movie of the year; Kurosawa's Capraesque NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH was rated #2. Almost three quarters of a century later, how does it rate? Ozawa is certainly a very cinematic monster. At times however, the movie seems more concerned with making its points than with good story-telling. The scene in which Ozawa has soldiers bringing in rations to hide in the cellar for his wife and himself, while the radio talks about how the harvest is so bad, while Ozawa goes on about how the government has betrayed them and if ten million starve, it will be a lesson to them is pushing the limits, if not exceeding them.

However, although much time has passed, the problem remains: people using their position for unwarranted gains; people who don't care what happens to others; people who say that other people should suffer; people who when the folly of their actions crash down on them, whine it is not their fault; people who; people who; people who.

Like the wine we spill at Passover seder, one drop for the suffering of each plague visited on the Egyptians, lessening our joy at our freedom, there are still People Who. Perhaps it was made largely to get Kinoshita in right with the authorities and let him continue practicing his craft. However, he was still saying the same thing forty years later, so I'm pretty sure he was sincere.

It is well known that the Japanese people themselves suffered quite a bit during World War II, especially during the last couple years. Of course, given the oppressive nature of the government at the time, no film makers were allowed to show this in any of their movies. So when the war was over and the Japanese movie industry ramped up again, many directors (with the encouragement of the Occupying Forces) took up this subject. That this subject was popular with Japanese audiences can be gauged by the fact that Morning for the Osone Family was ranked as the best movie of the year by Kinema Junpo magazine, while Kurosawa's similarly themed No Regrets for Our Youth was ranked right behind it.

But that was nearly seventy years ago. Has the movie held up over the years? In my eyes, no. The story is about a family of (mostly) pacifist intellectuals and all of the horrible things that happen to them during the war. Part of the problem is that so many tragedies befall them that it starts to feel contrived after a while. Nearly all of the movie is set within the family's house and there is no incidental music, so the whole feels like a rushed adaptation of a play. The performances are all well done but the actors cannot overcome the over the top melodrama. I'm sure watching this movie at the time of its release was cathartic for its viewers but now it is more of a curiosity piece than anything else. For anyone interested in watching a movie on this subject, I would recommend the far superior No Regrets for Our Youth instead.