Morning for the Osone Family

Director Keisuke Kinoshita began his career at the Shochiku studio in the 1930s, and made his first four films as director under strict wartime censorship during World War II. That meant supporting and glorifying the nation's war effort, and while Kinoshita's films comply, there is much more going on beneath the surface, including an examination of some characters' complex, conflicting emotions about the chaos that war brings to a community. He also layers in his own humanist sensibility and compassion. Kinoshita's fourth wartime film, Army (1944) was criticized by many as antiwar, and the studio rejected his next proposal to make a film about kamikaze pilots. He was accused of treason and did not make another film until after the war. By the time he began filming Morning for the Osone Family (1946) in late 1945, the war was over and Kinoshita was not only free to criticize the Japanese government's wartime policies, he was encouraged to do so by American occupation authorities, who imposed their own restrictions (such as no criticism of the victorious Allies, and no mention of the atomic bomb attacks). Finally able to express his own pacifism and to question the nation's lockstep support of the war, Kinoshita crafted a story about a liberal family with a long tradition of military service whose leftist ideals are tested by the conflict. Shot on a single set (the family home), the film begins in 1943 at the height of the war, as the widowed Fusako and her four grown children sing "Silent Night" together. (The celebration of the western holiday would probably have been considered subversive by Japanese authorities during wartime.) Daughter Yuko's fiance is leaving for military service, and breaks their engagement. One son is arrested and imprisoned for his antiwar writing; another, an artist, is drafted; and the third, under the influence of his conservative uncle, enlists. The film follows the family's fortunes and suffering during the rest of the war, as the uncle and his wife move in with them, emphasizing their philosophical and political differences. By the end of the film, the family and the nation are shattered but remain hopeful about a brighter future. Morning for the Osone Family won one of Japan's top film prizes, the Kinema Jumpo Award as best film. Kinoshita returned to the subject of World War II in two subsequent films A Japanese Tragedy (1953), and Twenty-Four Eyes (1954). The latter, one of Japan's most beloved film classics, follows the lives of a schoolteacher and twelve of her pupils over twenty turbulent years in Japan's history, including World War II. It swept all of the top awards in Japan, and won a U.S. Golden Globe award as best foreign film. Director: Keisuke Kinoshita Producer: Tatsuo Hosoya Screenplay: Eijiro Hisaita Cinematography: Hiroshi Kusuda Editor: Yshi Sugihara Costume Design: Eikichi Hayashi Art Direction: Mikio Mori Music: Takaaki Asai Principal Cast: Haruko Sugimura (Fusako Osone), Toshinosuke Nagao (Ichiro Osone), Shin Tokudaiji (Taiji Osone), Mitsuko Miura (Yuko Osone), Shiro Osaka (Takashi Osone), Eitaro Osawa (Issei Osone), Natsuko Kahara (Sachiko Osone), Junji Masuda (Akira Minari) ( 81 minutes by Margarita Landazuri