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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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Co-screenwriter of the film Keinosuke Uekusa [ja] pictured in 1948.

One Wonderful Sunday was produced by Toho in 1947.[3] The film was conceived in the aftermath of a series of strikes that led the stars of Akira Kurosawa's previous film, No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), to defect from the studio and form Shintoho.[4] This breakaway led to a lack of familiar actors contracted to Toho, with the studio relying on its directors, while Shintoho distinguished itself by focusing on their stars. As a result of this new challenge to the film studio, Kurosawa was commissioned to write a segment of the anthology film Four Love Stories [ja] (1947) and co-write Snow Trail (1947) concurrently with writing One Wonderful Sunday.[5]

The film was written by Kurosawa and his childhood friend Keinosuke Uekusa [ja].[6] It was the first film they wrote together, and while they collaborated well, they had a difference of opinion about handling the film's climax. While Kurosawa intended to elicit audience participation through applause, Uekusa suggested that applause be included in the film's sound, with the empty amphitheatre revealing couples similar to the film's protagonists.[7] Inspiration for the film's melodrama came from D.W. Griffith's Isn't Life Wonderful (1924).[8] Kurosawa later reflected that, in the vein of the Italian neorealist movement at the time, he wanted to make a film similar to Bicycle Thieves (1948).[9]

Actors Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita were unknown at the time, allowing the crew to film on location around the city using a handheld camera hidden inside a box and carrying-cloth. The use of this camera caused several problems when bystanders, unaware that a film was being shot, ended up obscuring planned shots, including one man at Shinjuku Station who assumed Kurosawa was a pickpocket when he tried to nudge him out of the camera's view. The actors (deliberately dressed as civilians) undistinct from the crowds of Tokyo, such that both Kurosawa and the camera operators often lost track of them.[10]

Filmed in black-and-white,[3] One Wonderful Sunday was shot at the same time as Snow Trail, during the production of which Kurosawa was sent rushes by director Senkichi Taniguchi for comment.[11] The film was edited by Kurosawa, and the music was composed by Tadashi Hattori.[3]

Themes

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Seen as a variation on the shomin-geki genre,[12][13] 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.[14] 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".[15] Rachael Hutchinson also references the film's emphasis on post-War life, labelling it as a "counter-discursive" take on the Occupation's policies by showing poverty, desolation, and English signage in violation of the CIE censorship regulations.[16]

Film scholar and acquaintance of Kurosawa Donald Richie, in his analysis of the film, draws particular attention to the use of music. However, he comments that "the most imaginative use of sound" is not musical, but comes from its incorporation in mundane activities, e.g. the sound of water hitting a metal pan at unexpected intervals, and the tuning note of an oboe evoking the train's whistle at the end.[17]

Release

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Theatrical

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The film was released in Japan on 25 June,[3] or 1 July 1947.[18] 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.[19] After the film's release in Japan, Kurosawa received a postcard from his old teacher congratulating him and Uekusa on their achievement; Kurosawa and Uekusa invited him for dinner.[20] During the film's climatic fourth wall-breaking scene, where Masako appeals to the audience to applaud, Kurosawa said he wanted to induce audience participation. Although Japanese audiences sat motionless during the scene where Kurosawa intended engagement, the director later happily remarked that audiences in Paris applauded with enthusiasm.[21][12][13] The film made its US theatrical debut on 29 June 1982 but was cut to 95 minutes, it was re-released in 1987.[18]

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.[22]

Reception

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Critical reception

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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,[23] and also marked the first award Kurosawa received for his role as film director.[24] Reviews tended to focus on the film's orchestral climax, without paying much attention to the preceding events.[8] The film was accused by Kurosawa's contemporary, director Kunio Watanabe, of being "Communist propaganda".[25]

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."[12]

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. ^ a b c d Galbraith IV 1996, p. 314.
  4. ^ Kurosawa 1983, pp. 149–150.
  5. ^ Kurosawa 1983, pp. 150–151.
  6. ^ Galbraith IV 2002, p. 89.
  7. ^ Kurosawa 1983, pp. 152–153.
  8. ^ a b Galbraith IV 2002, p. 90.
  9. ^ Conrad 2022, p. 50.
  10. ^ Kurosawa 1983, p. 154.
  11. ^ Galbraith IV 2002, p. 83.
  12. ^ a b c Kempley, Rita (5 September 1986). "'One Wonderful Sunday' (NR)". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  13. ^ a b Koresky, Michael (14 January 2008). "Eclipse Series 7: Postwar Kurosawa". Criterion Collection. Archived from the original on 14 February 2025. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  14. ^ Conrad 2022, pp. 49–50.
  15. ^ Conrad 2022, pp. 54–55.
  16. ^ Hutchinson 2007, pp. 375–378.
  17. ^ Richie 1970, p. 44.
  18. ^ a b Galbraith IV 2002, p. 662.
  19. ^ Galbraith IV 2002, p. 88.
  20. ^ Kurosawa 1983, p. 155.
  21. ^ Kurosawa 1983, p. 153.
  22. ^ "One Wonderful Sunday". Criterion Collection. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  23. ^ Galbraith IV 2002, p. 89, 91.
  24. ^ Conrad 2022, p. 55.
  25. ^ Galbraith IV 2002, p. 186.
  26. ^ "素晴らしき日曜日の解説". kotobank. Retrieved 28 September 2021.

Bibliography

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Books and articles

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  • Conrad, David A. (2022). Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan. McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-1-4766-8674-5.
  • Galbraith IV, Stuart (1996). The Japanese Filmography: 1900 through 1994. McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0032-3.
  • Galbraith IV, Stuart (2002). The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. New York: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571199828.
  • Hutchinson, Rachael (25 September 2007). "Kurosawa Akira's One Wonderful Sunday: censorship, context and 'counter-discursive' film". Japan Forum. 19 (3): 369–389. doi:10.1080/09555800701580121.
  • Kurosawa, Akira (1983). Something Like an Autobiography. Translated by Bock, Audie E. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0394714394.
  • Richie, Donald (1970). The Films of Akira Kurosawa (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520017811.
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