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One Wonderful Sunday

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One Wonderful Sunday
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAkira Kurosawa
Written byAkira Kurosawa
Keinosuke Uekusa
Produced bySojiro Motoki
StarringIsao Numasaki
Chieko Nakakita
CinematographyAsakazu Nakai
Music byTadashi Hattori
Production
company
Distributed byToho
Release date
  • 1 July 1947 (1947-07-01)
Running time
108 minutes
CountryJapan
LanguageJapanese

One Wonderful Sunday (Japanese: 素晴らしき日曜日, Hepburn: Subarashiki Nichiyōbi) is a 1947 Japanese film directed by Akira Kurosawa and co-written by Kurosawa and Keinosuke Uekusa.[1] The film was produced by Sojiro Motoki for Toho Studios and stars Chieko Nakakita and Isao Numasaki. It was made during the allied occupation of Japan and depicts a young couple who, with only 35 yen between them, go on a date together on the only day of the week they can see each other.

The film was produced and released in Japan in 1947, and depicts the challenges of life in early post-War Tokyo. One Wonderful Sunday received generally positive reviews out of a few mixed reactions, it marked the first instance wherein Kurosawa received an award for his talent as a director. The film is notable in the Kurosawa canon as the director's only shomin-geki, reviews focussed on a fourth wall-breaking scene at the climax.

Plot

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Yuzo and his fiancée, Masako, meet in Tokyo on a Sunday for their weekly date. They are determined to have a nice day even though they only have thirty-five yen between them, but this is easier said than done: they hear about an apartment they hope to rent so they can live together, but find it is too expensive. Yuzo plays baseball with a group of children but accidentally damages a manjū shop. They visit a club owned by someone Yuzo knew in the army, but cannot get in because the manager refuses to believe that someone dressed as shabbily as Yuzo could really know the owner. They go to the zoo, but it starts to rain and they have no umbrella, so they try to see a performance of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony only to find that ticket scalpers have already bought up all the cheap tickets to sell at a markup.

The unlucky lovers go back to the apartment Yuzo is sharing with a friend (who will be away until the evening), but Masako leaves after Yuzo angrily tries to force himself on her; forgetting her purse, they reconcile when she comes back for it. The rain stops, and they go to a café, where they are charged for two café au lait, which are twice as expensive as the coffee they thought they had ordered. Yuzo gives his coat to the restaurant as collateral, promising to pay back the rest of the bill when he can afford it. Yuzo's spirits begin to lift as he and Masako talk about their dream of opening a "café for the masses" with good food and drinks at reasonable prices; they even act out running their shop in an empty lot they pass by. Yuzo then takes Masako to an empty outdoor amphitheater, where he pantomimes conducting a performance of the Unfinished Symphony they were not able to see earlier in the day. After this, they part ways until the following Sunday.

Cast

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Production

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One Wonderful Sunday was written by Kurosawa and his childhood friend Keinosuke Uekusa.[3] Kurosawa later said that in the vein of the Italian neorealist movement at the time, he wanted to make a film similar to Bicycle Thieves (1948).[4] The film was shot at the same time as Snow Trail (1947)—which Kurosawa also co-wrote—during the production of which Kurosawa was sent rushes by the director Senkichi Taniguchi for comment.[5]

Themes

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Seen as a variation on the shomin-geki genre,[6][7] One Wonderful Sunday depicts the everyday life of a young lower-middle class couple in the aftermath of the Second World War. Historian David A. Conrad writes that One Wonderful Sunday is one of many occupation-era Japanese films that parallel the more famous Italian neorealism movement, emphasizing poverty, hunger, weakening social mores, and urban dilapidation during those years.[8] He continues, writing that it reflects a counter-point to his earlier film No Regrets for Our Youth as being a more cynical take on the Occupation and national recovery. Noting that suffering in contemporary Japan was widespread, Conrad states that Yuzo and Masako are "unrealistically upright in their adherence to moral ideals".[9]

Release

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Theatrical

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The film was released in Japan on 1 July 1947.[10] As the first major role of her career, One Wonderful Sunday briefly made Chieko Nakakita a star in Toho, while it was the only Kurosawa film that her co-star Numasaki acted in.[11] During the film's climatic fourth wall-breaking scene, where Masako appeals to the audience to applaud so that Yuzo and her can hear the music they are imagining, Akira Kurosawa said he wanted to "transform the audience into actual participants in the plot".[7] Although Japanese audiences sat motionless during the scene, creating an "awkward empty space" where Kurosawa intended engagement, the director later happily remarked that audiences in Paris applauded with enthusiasm.[6][7] The film made its US theatrical debut on 29 June 1982 but was cut to 95 minutes, it was re-released in 1987.[10]

Home video

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The Criterion Collection has released One Wonderful Sunday on DVD in North America as part of two Kurosawa-centered box sets; 2008's Postwar Kurosawa, the seventh entry in their Eclipse series, and 2009's AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa.[12]

Reception

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Critical reception

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Contemporary opinion

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Upon release, One Wonderful Sunday received generally positive, but mixed reviews. It was ranked sixth in Kinema Junpo's "Best Ten" list in 1947,[13] and also marked the first award Kurosawa received for his role as film director.[14] Reviews tended to focus on the film's orchestral climax, without paying much attention to the preceding events.[15] The film was accused by Kurosawa's contemporary, director Kunio Watanabe, of being "Communist propaganda".[16]

Retrospective opnion

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Writing in 1986, Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called One Wonderful Sunday "stylistically excessive, [and] wildly experimental", but wrote that it does presage the genius of Kurosawa's later works, "with low tracking shots, characteristically close crops and obstructive scenery making their debut. It's like looking for footprints, tracking the master this apprentice was to become."[6]

Awards and accolades

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References

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  1. ^ "若きクロサワが描く味わい深い人間賛歌 黒澤明素晴らしき日曜日". サライ. 18 July 2017. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  2. ^ "堺 左千夫（読み）サカイ サチオ新撰 芸能人物事典 明治～平成「堺 左千夫」の解説". kotobank. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  3. ^ Galbraith IV 2001, p. 89.
  4. ^ Conrad 2022, p. 50.
  5. ^ Galbraith IV 2001, p. 83.
  6. ^ a b c Kempley, Rita (5 September 1986). "'One Wonderful Sunday' (NR)". The Washington Post. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Koresky, Michael (14 January 2008). "Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa". Criterion Collection. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  8. ^ Conrad 2022, pp. 49–50.
  9. ^ Conrad 2022, pp. 54–55.
  10. ^ a b Galbraith IV 2001, p. 662.
  11. ^ Galbraith IV 2001, p. 88.
  12. ^ "One Wonderful Sunday". Criterion Collection. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  13. ^ Galbraith IV 2001, p. 89, 91.
  14. ^ Conrad 2022, p. 55.
  15. ^ Galbraith IV 2001, p. 90.
  16. ^ Galbraith IV 2001, p. 186.
  17. ^ "素晴らしき日曜日の解説". kotobank. Retrieved 28 September 2021.

Bibliography

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  • Conrad, David A. (2022). Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan. McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-1-4766-8674-5.
  • Galbraith IV, Stuart (2001). The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. New York: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571199828.
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