[CRITICAL] ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY (1947)

The January 25, 2017, re-release in cinemas by the distributor Carlotta, of the 8 films of Kurosawa.

– The More Worthily ★★★☆☆ (our review)

– A wonderful Sunday ★★★★☆ (our review)

– The Angel Drunk ★★★★★ (our critique)

– Mad Dog ★★★★★

– Live ★★★☆☆

– The hidden fortress ★★★★★ (our critique)

– Yojimbo (DVD release only, edition by Wild Side) ★★★★★ (our critique)

– Sanjuro ★★★★☆ (our review)

– Barbarossa ★★★★★

ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY is one of the four great films ofAkira Kurosawa, to finally appear in the video (remastered by Wild Side) October 28, 2015. It follows for a whole day, a couple : Masako and Yuso.

Their goal : to find what to do – and why not make it wonderful, this famous Sunday… With only 35 yen in their pockets. There is in this assumption of a sketch crazy, a promise of inventiveness, resourcefulness and renewal, which fully corresponds to the spirit of the film, as well as to the staging of Kurosawa, or the reality of the two protagonists. Romance there is, for example, not really what interests the film-maker in this couple. It seeks, rather, to capture their personalities, their moods, their dreams or their feelings through their various interactions ; those with the company’s Tokyo, or simply those that they maintain with one another. Kurosawa offers us a film very elastic and unpredictable to illustrate this relationship. Both in its pace, that by the emotions that filter. ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY is built in a large gap in between the sad moments and joyful, between farcical comedy and tragedy hardcore… Between long moments of contemplative/introspective… And twists and turns-ups in series ; between the poetry of the moment… And realism pallor of a Tokyo reconstruction ; between the exploration of the intimate couple japanese … And a trip in the depths of a japanese city.

If there is one thing really constant in ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY, it is this concern of a large gap in between each scene. Kurosawa shapes by all of this a “love story” hybrid, both very believable in this attention to the everyday things, but also very film by the tale she takes per moments.

As often in Kurosawa, the story, the image (the movement of the body in front of the camera, camera movement, frame composition), sound (music and sound effects, is fantastically adapted to the situations and the mood of the characters), or even actors (the optimist/Masako/Chieko Nakakita , and the pessimistic/Yuzo/Isao Numasaki), merge to create this succession of scenes of fascinating, well-constructed, each around the contrast between two distinct tones. There is thus a freedom of tone and unpredictability of the situation which gives the film an undeniable charm. Until even, this will transform A WONDERFUL SUNDAY in the feel-good movie, by the inclusion of the viewer in the narrative process (as a surprise formal really couillue). The sum of these qualities is also its flaw : like the films of the New Wave, it is necessary to be sensitive to the absence of issues within a film, but also to accept the heterogeneity challenging the implementation stage.

“With ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY, Kurosawa foreshadows the freedom of tone typical of the New Wave to tell us a story intimate, human and social registered in Japan after the war. Fascinating.”

And then there are these elements are fundamental for the success of the film : the social contexts and intimate. The Tokyo of 1947, in which the characters live still bears subtle traces of the war. For example, there’s this “inflation” which makes the people generally poor – an environment where resourcefulness is a synonym for opportunism and exploitation of the other, an illustration of a capitalism that begins to corrupt the values of honor and morality typically japanese (we talk about this in more detail in our critique of the Graveyard of morality or in that of Yojimbo). There are also some ruins, which are conducive to the dream, as the decay… and Then there is that relationship or something is broken without that we never speak what.

Kurosawa listens, by the wanderings of these two beings, of many things serious and deep. We can recognize a little in ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY, the Scorsese of Taxi Driver (or one of the unknown After Hours)… In this way of capturing the soul of a city and an era through the random and the unpredictable, the contrasts, the micros stakes, the moments of weightlessness.

After the propaganda film contaminated by the obsessions humanists of the filmmaker, The more Worthily, the ersatz entertainment made in Kurosawa located in feudal Japan Who treads on the tail of the tiger.., the intense love triangle inscribed in a context of strong political (the period from 1933-1945) I regret nothing of my youth… Akira Kurosawa, offers us this time with this WONDERFUL SUNDAY, look at japan after a war in the white of the eyes, while telling us about the touching story and poetic of a man and a woman.

ONE WONDERFUL SUNDAY has been reviewed in the context of a retrospective of Akira Kurosawa by the Light festival 2015. The film, unpublished until now, will also be re-released in HD remastered by Wildside. Available from the 28th of October 2015 !