The Search for Self-Identity in the Postwar Films of Akira
Kurosawa
No Regrets for Our Youth
Christian Fuchs November 26, 1996
The picture is based on the forced resignation in 1933 of a professor at Kyoto
University for his alleged Communistic thought. The Peace Preservation Laws
of 1925 and 1928 banned any words, actions or writing that urged the abolition
of private property or the imperial regime. It provided the legal basis for
the mass arrest of radicals by the police during the 1930s (Prince, p. 68).
The 1933 incident caused a sensation among the nation's intellectuals, and one
of the professor's students was executed in 1944 for spying (Richie, p.36).
No Regrets for Our Youth is Yukie's story.
Yukie (Setsuko Hara) is the daughter of a college professor (Denjiro Okochi)
and in love with Noge (Susumu Fujita), one of her father's students. She is
also friendly with another student, Itokawa (Akitake Kono). When her father
loses his job as professor Yukie does not understand the full implications of
the new Japan. Only when Noge is imprisoned does it begin to dawn on her what
kind of a world she is living in. When, out of boredom, she flees to Tokyo to
work as a secretary, she runs into Itokawa who tells her Noge is also in Tokyo.
She finally visits Noge, and they begin a passionate affair which ends with
their arrest; Noge dies in jail and Yukie returns to Kyoto with her father.
Yukie decides to return Noge's ashes to his parents and to live with them. She
endures a great deal of hardship, both from his uncaring parents and neighbors,
who harass the traitor's family. Despite the hardship, she endures and triumphs.
After the war, she returns briefly to Kyoto, but realizes her life is with the
peasants, and she returns to them.
Kurosawa not-so-subtly introduces the carefree characters of the beginning
of the film to the harsh realities of an increasingly militaristic Japan by
having the picnic of the opening scene interrupted by the sound of machine-gun
fire. Kurosawa also shows his clear disdain for those who plunged Japan into
an impossible to win war by having one of the characters say, Japan took Manchuria
by force and colonized it. Even fifty years later Japanese leaders are reluctant
to discuss the war in such frank terms, but Kurosawa stated it in a film just
one year after the war's end.
Kurosawa uses editing to demonstrate the hectic activities of this time: the
protests against the militarists organized by students and professors at universities
in Kyoto. He mixes quick cuts and a variety of angles depicting scenes of the
protests with scenes of the Education Minister and military leaders sharing
a laugh on the golf course, followed by scenes of horses being used against
the rioters and the rioters being hauled to jail. This montage makes it obvious
that the student protesters are flirting with jail and expulsion; however, a
scene of Itokawa at home being harangued by his mother depicts her appealing
to his sense of duty to his family to stay in school. Japanese society places
a heavy emphasis on on, a primary and ever-present indebtedness which one owes
to Emperor, family, lord and teacher. It is not a monetary debt, but a debt
of duty, of obligation. The repayment of on is absolute and unconditional (Ruth
Benedict in Scheiner, p. 39-41) Unable to muster a strong enough sense of individual
worth, Itokawa accedes to his mother's wishes and subverts his personal desires
to please her and avoid bringing dishonor upon his family.
Several years later, Itokawa, now a prosecutor, visits the family. Itokawa,
who has harbored feelings for Yukie, watches for her reaction as he announces
he will bring Noge on his next visit. Yukie asks him not to, and says, If I
marry you, my life will be peaceful ... and boring. If I marry Noge, something
dazzling awaits.
Realizing there is nothing for her quiet Kyoto, Yukie decides to leave home
and move to Tokyo. Her father goes to her room to try to dissuade her as she
packs. He asks her to think of her mother. Unlike Itokawa, Yukie is determined.
She discards on and decides to choose what she believes is best for her, not
for her family. Yukie wants to start her life over again. A shot of Yukie catches
her eyes gazing out, and as the panning camera follows her look we see a shot
through her bedroom window. "I want to live," Yukie tells her father
as she looks out the window toward her future.
In Kurosawa's late work, men and women alike are perceived as victims. Kurosawa
has always accepted the bushidő dichotomy - the choice between duty and love.
To live is the motif of No Regrets for Our Youth, and it expresses in
many of Kurosawa's films the necessity to choose between love between man and
woman and love of humanity (Joan Mellen in Goodwin, p. 105).
Yukie yearns to discover if there is something more to her life than her family
and the safe confines of their home. When Yukie learns Noge is in Tokyo, she
decides to see him, and on the first visit to his office she goes all the way
in. When an associate goes to get him from another room, fear of the future
sets in and Yukie runs off. Returning again and again, she is always depicted
standing on the street looking into the building where Noge works, afraid to
see him, afraid of the future. Kurosawa shows the passage of time by offering
a variety of weather in the scenes of Yukie standing on the street outside Noge's
office. Finally, Noge runs into her as she is standing outside his office.
At their sidewalk meeting, she can tell he is holding a big secret close,
but Noge will not share it with her. Similarly, Kurosawa never lets us know
exactly what it is that Noge is doing. Yukie warns Noge about Itokawa, but Noge
realizes already that arrest could come at anytime. He tells her he must do
what he can. Fearing the dazzling fate that awaits her, Yukie runs off, but
Noge catches up to her. Their love for each other finally admitted, they move
in together. Wary of Noge's safety, she tries to find comfort in the words he
utters when she asks him why he chooses the dangerous path: No regrets in my
youth is his motto. Yukie will adopt it as her own when she moves to the peasant
village, and thus Kurosawa gives us the name of his film.
Kurosawa spends several scenes - without resorting to dialogue -demonstrating
that their time together is alternately joyous and sad. Remembering their 1933
picnic, they go on another, but Yukie runs off crying. At the cinema, Noge and
the rest of the audience are laughing at the film playing, but Yukie is crying.
She fears for him and his secret life.
After their arrest and during her interrogation, she stoically refuses to
talk. The detective tells her to reconsider, and she is put into a cell to consider.
The slow chimes of a clock give us a sense of the amount of time she is left
alone to consider. Detectives talk to her again, and tell her Noge -- who had
been trying to stop war -- wasted his time. A radio in the interrogation room
broadcasts news of war with the United States and England as the camera gives
us a shot of a calendar: December 8, 1941. (December 7th in the U.S.)
When Yukie decides to stay and live with them, Noge's parents do not trust
her motives and think she is simply an upper-class woman from Kyoto come to
make fun of them. As a shot of Yukie's sweat-drenched shirt is superimposed
over a shot of her working in the fields, she repeats a mantra: I was Noge's
wife. A sequence of shots let us know that she works many nights in the field.
Yukie has begun her new life. Finally tiring of the nocturnal existence, she
removes the barricades from the house and goes to work in the daylight. Noge's
mother, who has still not accepted her presence, tries to stop her, but fails.
Along the road to the fields, Yukie is taunted by children and gaped at by villagers.
Kurosawa shows us the fear the peasants have for Yukie in these scenes, especially
when a mother runs to the street to pull her child from the path of the approaching
Yukie, as if her dishonor could affect the child. Yukie falls under the burden
of a heavy pack on her back, and is laughed at by the villagers. Trying to rise,
she falls twice more, and only manages to stand up when Noge's mother comes
to her aid. They then go to work the fields together. As they work side by side,
a voice-over of the spirit of the dead husband/son is heard saying, "No
regrets in my life, no regrets whatsoever."
The honorable samurai's behavioral options included generous self-sacrifice,
stoic perseverance and responsible consistency (Ikegami, p. 370-71). Honoring
the spirit of her dead husband, Yukie resembles the old samurai as she continues
to work despite illness and exhaustion; she is rewarded when she and Noge's
mother look over the planted paddies. Their task is done. However, the villagers
attempt to break Yukie's spirit: Kurosawa fills the screen with long and medium
shots of devastated rice paddies, and close-ups of signs painted with the word
traitor planted throughout the paddies. All of the rice plants have been ripped
from the earth. She must start again. Rather than be destroyed by the outrage,
Yukie exhibits a samurai's determination and begins to replant the paddies.
Yukie must climb back down into the rice paddies and to scale a mountain of
opposition. The price of this determined individualism is a profound loneliness
that is the other side of individualism.
She is rescued from despair by her dedication to her dead husband's family
and also to the broader community. Kurosawa defines human capabilities as open-ended
and developing rather than sealed by sets of institutional and social roles.
Human life is portrayed as potential (Prince, p. 117). Bushidő, a term that
came into common use during the Edo period (1600-1868), designated the ethical
code of the ruling samurai class. It involved not only weapons and fighting
skills, but also absolute loyalty to one's lord, devotion to duty and courage.
(Kodansha, Vol. 1, p. 221) All the best qualities of the warrior have been spiritualized
by Kurosawa in his art. The hero is always as strong as the ideal samurai. This
strength may be physical, as in the samurai heroes of "Seven Samurai" ... but
the protagonist may also be a person of ordinary or inferior physical capabilities,
as is Yukie. Her great strength is spiritual rather than physical. Her will
to create good is overwhelming, and this obsessive dedication, rather than any
use of physical force, enables her to triumph (Prince, p. 118).
Yukie's dedication to her new life, her determination to complete the task
of planting the fields, has led to her acceptance by Noge's parents despite
their initial opposition to her. That same dedication and determination also
allows her to triumph over an old friend.
Itokawa visits and tries to convince Yukie to leave the peasants and return
to her life in Kyoto, but her zeal for life makes him feel small. Itokawa asks
to visit Noge's grave, but she forbids it and refuses to show him where it is.
Time is a slow but fair judge, she tells him. Itokawa, who has always chosen
the safe path, walks away in disgrace.
Again Kurosawa tweaks the militarists with a slate telling us The war is over.
Freedom is restored. Yukie's father is a professor again, and Yukie visits her
family, but will not stay with them. I found my roots in that village, she tells
them. By disregarding the centuries-old obligation of on Yukie has chosen for
herself a path leading to self-fulfillment and personal freedom. She now knows
she can do whatever she chooses to do, the dazzling future is hers to choose.
At the same time, she has not become selfish. She embraces her new family and
community, becoming an integral and accepted part of both. Through her own force
of personality, Yukie has determined her destiny.
[P]eople are subject to what is called destiny. This destiny lies not so
much in their environment or their position in life as within their individual
personality as it adapts to that environment and that position. (Kurosawa
in Prince, p. 97)
Waga seishun ni kuinashi (1946)
Setsuko Hara .... Yukie Yagihara
Susumu Fujita .... Ruykichi Noge
Denjiro Okochi .... Professor Yagihara
Haruko Sugimura .... Madame Noge
Eiko Miyoshi .... Madame Yagihara
Kokuten Kodo .... Mr. Noge
Akitake Kôno .... Itokawa
Takashi Shimura .... Police Commissioner 'Poison Strawberry' Dokuichigo
Taizô Fukami .... Minister of Education
Masao Shimizu .... Professor Hakozaki
Haruo Tanaka .... Student
Kazu Hikari .... Detective
Hisako Hara (II) .... Itokawa's Mother
Shin Takemura .... Prosecutor
Katao Kawasaki .... Servant
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Additional observations by Loftus:
It sems that a critical point in the film comes when Yukie has the conversation
with her father. She is in her room packing to leave home. She wants to leave
Kyoto and go up to Tokyo. She is "bored" with life, she tells us.
She is disgusted with her life; it lacks solidity, it lacks the excitement
and adventure that might come from political engagement. She tells her father,
"I want to live. I want to start my life over again. I want to go out
into the world and find out about life."
"The world is not a garden," he replies.
"I think I am slowly dying. I am not living. I want to find meaning
in life. I want to live." This is Yukie's response. For fans of Kurosawa's
great film, Ikiru (To Live), one can see the genesis of some of the
ideas about needing to find meaning and purpose in life which drive that film.
Here, Yukie's father tells her that if she is determined, she must go. It
is worth it. But, he cautions her,
"You are responsible for what you do. If it's freedom you want, you
must fight for it. Freedom requires sacrifice and struggle." (Or something
like this. I don't have the exact lines.)
Is this the primary message Kurosawa wants his 1948 audience to think
about, men and women alike? Democracy isn't jsut a matter of mouthing words
or doing something trendy; it involves commitment and sacrifice.
This, apparently, is how you live a life with no regrets.
See this excerpt from Kurosawa's autobiography as well:
SOMETHING LIKE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
No Regrets for Our Youth
THE TITLE OF my first post-war film became a popular phrase. After the release,
one frequently
came across the usage "no regrets for our ------" in the newspapers
and other media. But for me
personally the feeling is the opposite; I have many regrets about this movie.
The reason is that
the script was rewritten against my will.
This film was born amid the two great union strikes at the Toho studios. The
first Toho dispute took
place in February of 1946, and the second in October of the same year. NO REGRETS
FOR OUR
YOUTH was produced during the seven months between the two outbreaks. As a result
of the victory
of the first strike, the Toho employees' union became very powerful, and the
number of Communist
Party members among the employees increased. Their voice in matters of film
production became
more important than before, and a Scenario Review Committee was formed. This
committee
decided that the script for NO REGRETS required changes, and the film was shot
from a rewrite. The
reason was not because of any offense found in the content of my script, but
because another
script based on similar material had also been submitted to the committee. I
felt, however, that although the two scripts were based on similar material,
they treated it in entirely different ways. The result, I was sure, would be
two entirely different films. Anyway, this is what I said before the Review
Committee, but my opinion was rejected.
When the two films were completed, members of the Review Committee said to me,
"You were
right. If we had known they would turn out like this, we would have let you
shoot from your first
script." This was the height of irresponsibility. Playwright Hisaita Eijiro's
first script for my film was
such a beautiful piece of work that it still pains me to remember that it was
shelved at the hands of
such thoughtless people.
The second draft of the script for NO REGRETS was a forced rewrite of the story,
so it became
somewhat distorted. This shows in the last twenty minutes of the film. But my
intention was to
gamble everything on that last twenty minutes. I poured a feverish energy into
those two thousand
feet and close to two hundred shots of film. All of the rage I felt toward the
Scenario Review
Committee went into those final images.
When I had completed the film, I was so agitated and exhausted I couldn't evaluate
it with a cool
head. But I was convinced that I must have made something very strange. The
company arranged
a screening for the American censors. They sat talking among themselves while
it was being shown,
so I was all the more certain that I had failed. But then as the film went into
its last twenty minutes
a hush fell over the group, and they began to gaze at the screen with deep concentration.
They
looked as if they were holding their breath right up until the end title appeared
on the screen.
When the lights came on, they all stood up at once and reached out to shake
hands with me. They
praised the film to the skies and congratulated me warmly, but I just stood
there amazed.
It wasn't until after I left them that I really began to feel that the film
had succeeded.