No Regrets for Our Youth

I went to my local DVD rental store and found this early Kurosawa made just after the end of the World War 2. Curiously this film, "No regrets for my youth" was dubbed in Italian. This was kind of annoying as I like to see the films in their original language, but anyway as I've already seen so many films dubbed in English, why not Italian? Well, maybe it was the Italian dubbing, but I couldn't fail to see the similarity between "No regrets for my youth" and the neorealist films made in Italy just after the war. Coincidence? Anyway, Kurosawa was mainly influenced by the Soviet cinema.

"No regrets for my youth" tells the story of the fight of some students against the militarist regime in Japan and their different destinies throughout the years, but the film focuses mainly on Yukie, that we see in the beginning, just as a spoilt girl, flirting with revolutionary games. She's very sensitive and soon notices how alienated from reality she is. The military government is slowly tightening its iron grip and silencing the opposition. Idealism has become dangerous in Japan.

Yukie now sees what's happening. She's very passionate in whatever she does. Yukie makes no compromises, but she's no fool either. The film will describe her journey - first, the fires of adolescence when the world seems to be out there just to fulfill her wishes, then self-awareness, fight, disillusion, suffering.... She and her friends will arrive to different conclusions and tread different roads.

In a way, "No regrets for my youth" is a coming of age film, in which politics, emotion and sex play an important role. Yukie wants to find her place in the world. She's not satisfied with her life and she's not satisfied with the world in which she's living. She wants to change them. "No regrets for my youth" shows how she tries to live up to her ideals.

In "No regrets for my youth" (as I said before) we feel the influence the Soviet (and Italian) masters had on Kurosawa. We see here a young Kurosawa - more spontaneous and enthusiastic (another Kurosawa film, more or less, along the same line is "Stray Dog" that takes place in post-war Japan). The camera is used effectively to show the landscape and people. The acting is more natural. We are spared the exaggerated gestures and movements that are seen in some of his later films. Setsuko Hara who plays Yukie is an extraordinary actress. She helps the film to achieve a truly great emotional depth. Highly recommended!

The daughter (Setsuko Hara) of a politically disgraced university professor (Denjiro Okochi) struggles to find a place for herself in love and life, in the uncertain world of Japan leading into WWII.

One character was inspired by the real-life Hotsumi Ozaki, who assisted the famous Soviet spy Richard Sorge and so became the only Japanese citizen to suffer the death penalty for treason during World War II. It is this aspect that makes the film particularly interesting, as it reflects on the role Japan played in the world from 1933-1945.

The film as a whole is interesting for being made so soon after World War II. Clearly the budget and production value is limited, but you might expect a country ravaged by war would be too busy with other things to make movies. Not so when you have a man named Kurosawa.

Obstensibly it is a story about Hun, played by Setsuko Hara, who falls in love with a spy, in a time of great turmoil and protests to combat fascism. What makes it a 10 star film is that as it goes along it becomes much more absorbing, with the characters becoming deeper in their beliefs. Here it is: Setsuko Hara does an amazing job playing the young girl. This is her first great role and I was astounded by the depth of her performance. She plays sweet, young, very pretty, but over the course of the film, which spans approximately 11 years, she falls not on hard times, but wields a meditation on personal sacrifice. Having only seen her up to now in Ozu films, I thought she was one of the greatest. Now, I know she was. She plays this character with everything. She even credibly ages over the film. You have to give Mr. Kurosawa credit also, of course, but Ms. Hara's performance makes this an incredible film, which only gets better as it goes along. This film is now part of a box set, and very highly recommended. Any complaints, which I'll mention but are very minor, are sometimes the subtitles are wrong and the film is at times blurry when there is movement (I have this film on an earlier box set, maybe these problems have been rectified). Just know that this is an incredibly absorbing film starring the excellent Setsuko Hara and directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. That alone makes this worth the price of admission, and it delivers wonderfully.

I could hardly believe the actress playing the mercurial Yukie would soon be playing the serene and self-effacing Noriko in Yasujiro Ozu's home drama classics such as "Early Summer" and "Tokyo Story". Such was Setsuko Hara's versatility and malleability that she could move easily between Ozu's saintly goddess and Akira Kurosawa's passionate, reluctant heroine in this 1946 anti-war melodrama. In his first post-WWII film and the only one he ever made focused on a female protagonist, Kurosawa (with co-writer Eijirô Hisaita) has fashioned an emotionally ripe, politically charged and time-spanning story around Yukie, the daughter of a college professor, a one-time idealist who loses his job in face of the growing fascism engulfing Japan in 1933. Beautiful and skating precariously on the surface of her life, she finds herself caught between two men, both former students of her father - Noge, the son of peasant rice farmers, who becomes a secretive anti-war activist, and Itokawa, the conservative prosecutor and a symbol of the passive conformity that allowed Japan to enter a no-win war.

Yukie is excited by Noge's political passion, and they begin an intense, inevitably short-lived affair. When Noge goes to prison, she becomes politically enlightened to Japan's oppressive state, and after he dies, she decides to take his ashes to his parents and stay with them to work the fields. She endures a great deal of hardship, both from his uncaring parents and neighbors, who harass the family of a "traitor". Against the odds, Yukie endures and triumphs and despite a brief sojourn back to Kyoto, realizes her life is far more fulfilling with the peasants. Much of the plot is rather convoluted and the storyline jumpy, as the politically motivated Kurosawa seems more interested in drawing certain emotional responses from the viewer. Clarity is only a secondary consideration here, as he busily applies much of the visual flair that he would exhibit with greater impact in his later masterworks like "Rashomon" and "Seven Samurai".

Even at this early stage in his directorial career (it's only his fifth film), there are a number of his stylistic touches evident - a series of quick freeze shots to illustrate Yukie's traumatized response behind a closed door to Noge's surprise departure; the use of a slow exposure camera that causes an unearthly (and sometimes irritating) blurring effect when people are in motion; people lying in a pastoral setting staring skywards (mimicked recently by Chinese filmmakers like Yimou Zhang); Yukie's oddly exaggerated, out-of-sync piano playing; and large crowds rushing down steps in an Eisenstein-like manner. However, the film gains real emotional heft toward the end when Yukie struggles in the rice fields with Noge's mother (played almost unrecognizably by another Ozu regular, Haruko Sugimura) under Yukie's mantra of the dead husband/son, "No regrets in my life, no regrets whatsoever". It's a moving sequence which brings the story to its resonant conclusion.

Proving why she was one of Japan's favorite post-WWII film stars, Hara is superb in showing Yukie's initial flightiness and evolving political consciousness. The other performances are reasonable but hardly as memorable - Susumu Fujita as Noge, Akitake Kono as Itokawa (whom Yukie rejects at the end as unworthy to know where Noge's grave is due likely to his pro-war stance) and Denjiro Okochi as Yukie's father. The combination of the illustrious Kurosawa and the incandescent Hara is certainly compelling enough to warrant viewing.

This film focuses on the young woman Yukie, and her relationship with two of her male friends, Isokawa and Noge. Isokawa is weak-willed and practical while Noge is a fiery anti-war protester. Yukie is fascinated with Noge, but is unable to impress him because he is only concerned with the anti-war movement. Through the first part of the film, she follows an unfocused path, somewhat following Noge and somewhat rebelling against her parents, who would prefer she marry Isokawa and settle down. Yukie eventually settles down with Noge, and this is where the movie's pivotal point.

The title of the movie comes from Noge's statement to Yukie halfway through the film - she does not know he has continued his involvement in the anti-war movement, although he has spent time in prison and China for protesting. He tells her he has no regrets for any of his actions. Yukie doesn't quite understand until he is arrested and eventually killed for spying. Yukie has the option of returning home to her parents, but instead she finds Noge's parents and moves in with them. There she suffers hardship, sickness, and the humiliation of being known as an anti-war collaborator. The central question of the movie is why did she do this? Was she trying to "hold on" to a lost lover? Did she feel guilt over not having been more active in the anti-war movement? Was this her penance for a mis-spent youth? Even more perplexing is the way she rebukes Isokawa at the end of the film by refusing to show him Noge's grave - Isokawa had supported Japanese involvement in the war.

Perhaps the film is about the mind-state of Japan after losing the war - those who opposed the war, or who struggled through hardship to live normal lives, should value their actions in spite of the consequences. Those who supported the war deserve scorn and share in the responsibility of bloodshed.