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!

In 1933, in Kyoto, the academic freedom is under attack and the spoiled daughter of Professor Yagihara (Denjirô Ôkôchi), Yukie Yagihara (Setsuko Hara), is courted by the idealistic student Ruykichi Noge (Susumu Fujita) and by the tolerant Itokawa (Akitake Kôno). When the academic freedom is crushed by the fascists, Professor Yagihara and the members of the Faculty of Law resigns from their positions and Noge is arrested.

Five years later, Noge visits Professor Yagihara and his family under the custody of the now Prosecutor Itokawa and tells that he is going to China. Yukie decides to move alone to Tokyo and years later, she meets Itokawa in Tokyo and he tells that Noge is living in Tokyo. Yukie visits Noge and they become lovers.

In 1941, Noge is arrested accused of ringleader of a spy network and Yukie is also sent to prison. When she is released, sooner she learns that Noge died in prison and she decides to move to the peasant village where Noge's parents live and are blamed of being spies by the villagers. She changes her lifestyle and works hard with Madame Noge (Haruko Sugimura) planting rice and earning the respect of her mother and father-in-law. With the end of the war, freedom is restored in the defeated Japan and the flowers blossom again.

Japanese militarists used the Manchurian Incident as a pretext to press the public for support to invade the Asian mainland. Any opposing ideology was denounced as "Red". The Kyoto University Incident a.k.a. Takigawa Incident was one example of this tactic.

Using this historical event and the Japanese tradition as background, Akira Kurosawa released in 1946 the fictional "Waga seishun ni kuinashi" a.k.a. "No Regret for Our Youth" to disclose the lack of freedom in Japan of those years. I do not recall in this moment any other film of this great director with such strong female character. Further, Kurosawa seems to be influenced by Yasujirô Ozu disclosing the relationship of Yukie with her family first and with Noge's parents in the second half of his story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Não Lamento Minha Juventude" ("No Regret for Our Youth")

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.

NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH is quite different from the period pieces that made Kurosawa famous in the 1950s and 1960s. Set during WWII, the movie follows Yukie, the spoiled daughter of a liberal professor. She lives an enchanted, comfortable life, yet she is also keenly aware that her life is empty. The thought of following a conventional path (marriage to a steady breadwinner, children) bores her. She is drawn to a social activist named Noge, whose life on the edges of society is dangerous but seemingly thrilling-- and from there, she is taken from her gilded bourgeois life and thrown into the world to find a way to live her life consciously and with purpose.

Kurosawa's oeuvre is generally chided for being too male-focused, but in Yukie, his only female protagonist, he gives us one of his finest heroes. Her transformation over the course of the movie is brilliantly played by Setsuko Hara. Her mannerisms and expressions allow her character to age credibly, more so than other movies I can think of where the audience watches a character age over many years. Yukie is idealistic, but also practical and steadfast.

As a film, NO REGRETS is executed with flair: Kurosawa has yet to develop his own signature style fully at this point in his career. I found a lot of debt to Soviet and European art cinema on display here, especially in the montages. He is not yet the master filmmaker he would become, but this is an astonishing early effort, heartfelt and assured. But it would be a shame to only see this movie as a stepping stone towards better things, for it is a fine piece of work in its own right.

The technical aspects of the film are very good. The camera used in this film uses abnormally slow shutter speeds causing the most slight (yet noticeable) distortions in movement, lending to the film a certain artistic sense that others do not have. It gives almost an eerie sense to it, and often times it seems to be somewhat drab, however: it seems to add very much to the mood of the story.

In addition to the artistic filming itself, the script truly drives the story and leads us to believe more of what Akira Kurosawa believed -- anti-Fascism, anti-Militarism, through the portrayal of events concerning Japanese imperial rule in the film. Through the eyes of Yukie we learn what it is like to be oppressed, and we learn the strength of the human spirit in its' resolute resistance to the militarism and fascism of her day; the power of the will is truly highlighted in this film, and the persistent commitment to doing good (similar to that portrayed by Watanabe in Ikiru) is very present.

The flashbacks to youth, the conjuring of memories, and the portrayal of the good times right next to the bad times, and the depth of human emotion that is revealed truly makes this film something worth watching. Some of the emotionality of the scenes (especially Yukie's emotional moments) portrays the existential angst that we all have, and her strength & perseverance represent everything we would like to have. It was a truly impacting story.

I was especially keen on the ability of Akira Kurosawa to take some of the most inward, personal moments of extreme sadness and put them into the film and, without any seeming prior explanation, the viewer is able to relate in their own way. This film highlights a philosophy of oneself against the world, and the importance of being true to one self. The message was portrayed very clearly and the end result is a masterpiece of Cinema that is greatly overlooked.