Director: Kurosawa Akira
Script: Hashimoto S., Hayasaka Fumio, Kurosawa Akira, Oguni Hideo
Cinematographer: Nakai Azakazu
Editing: Yang Hongyu
Sound: Minawa Ichirô, Yanoguchi F.
Music: Satô Masaru
Cast: Mifune Toshirô, Shimura Takashi, Chiaki Minoru, Miyoshi Eiko, Tôgô Haruko, Sengoku Noriko
Production: Toho Co. Ltd
Distribution:
Action Cinémas / Théâtre du Temple
4 rue de Lanneau
75005 Paris
Tel: 0033 1.43.26.70.40
Fax: 01.43.26.79.02
Mail: [email protected]
www.actioncinemas.com
Year: 1956
35 mm, B & W, 99 min,
OV Japanese with French Subtitles
We are in Tokyo in 1955.
Kiichi Nakajima is an industrial about to retire who can only think about going into exile as soon as possible. Head of the household, he wants to protect himself and his family from a danger he considers very serious and imminent: the nuclear threat. Convinced that Brazil is located sufficiently far away from radiations in case of an attack, he decides to buy lands there and wants to sell all his possessions, including his firm, for that purpose. His perplex children and in-laws refuse to follow him and sue him in order to place him in the care of a guardian and to foil his plans. Short of arguments, exhausted and violent, the industrial then sets fire to his coal firm. After such a despairing gesture, the old man is immediately committed…
With Kurosawa’s favourite actor Toshiro Mifune as lead role, this film has to be put into the context of the time when Japan in the process of rebuilding is still under Hiroshima and Nagasaki impact, fearing a nuclear outcome of the Korea War.