49th Parallel

49th Parallel (aka The Invaders) (Michael Powell, 1941)
Interesting propaganda film to promote the war effort by the British government, made by "The Archers" (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell) before they became "The Archers" and combining the writer-director credits together. More than anything, it was designed to influence isolationist American minds about the threat of the Nazis, by presenting a story where they arrive on our shores.

It is 1941 and a German sub is prowling Canadian waters, sinking any transport they can. Detected, they make a run for Hudson's Bay and the sub commander orders a landing party to capture an outpost in the area. But, soon after leaving the sub, the men see it attacked and sunk by a bomber, sent by the Canadian air force, alerted to their presence. The Commander, Hirth (Eric Portman) continues to land to complete the mission, hoping that they can make their way eventually to the United States which is (gulp!) famously neutral in order to get back to Germany.

But, first they have to get through Canada.  First stop, a trading post, where Finley Currie and Eskimo guide Ley On are welcoming back French trapper Johnnie (Laurence Olivier—with the wildest accent you've ever heard, eh?) after being up north for eleven months. The Nazi's take over the trading post, hoping to entice and hijack a plane to get them across the border. But, it goes badly leading to a skirmish, which barely has the Nazis escaping with their lives. They then make their way to a German Hutterite community led by Anton Walbrook, who first welcomes the visitors to their peaceful enclave, then when the Nazis' arrogance get the better of them and try to teach the community about their "better" way, Hirth and the community leader engage in a lively debate over the merits of each other's systems. The Germans are kicked out, making their way to the wilderness where they are captured by the RCMP, but make their escape using an eccentric writer (Leslie Howard) as a hostage, but even that plan does not go as planned.  

Each encounter has reduced their numbers, and, at the last, only Hirth remains free and on the run.  He hops a freight to try and make it across the 49th parallel into the States, but riding the car with him is AWOL soldier Andy Brock (Raymond Massey), whose sympathies are still with Canada, despite being reluctant to fight, and he makes things very complicated.

It is a propaganda piece, after all, and if the various episodes seem a bit far-fetched and feel like a tortured demonstration on the length and breadth of Canadian diversity ("Meet the Canadians! Even OUR Germans don't like THEIR Germans"), it is with the intent of contrasting that diversity with the sameness of the Aryan lineage and autocratic group-think of the sub crew. If the thing gets a little pedantic, it was to educate reluctant Americans about Nazi philosophy in a dramatic fashion and inspire a feeling of "It CAN happen to YOU" to the "American Firster's." It's a bit clumsy and the fisticuffs are a might ham-fisted, but it's positively sub-tle when you put it up against the thousand goose-stepping hosers of Triumph des Willens.  And Powell and Pressburger were just getting started.

Eric Portman's Commandant wants things a little
more orderly in 49th Parallel

Walking Kurosawa's Road: The Most Beautiful (1944)

The inability to write about the films of Akira Kurosawa to my satisfaction led me to to take a different path: start at the beginning, take each film in sequence, one after the other, and watch the progression of the man from film-maker to Master.   I'm hoping I can write more intelligently and more knowledgeably about his work by, step by step, Walking Kurosawa's Road.


The Most Beautiful (aka 一番美しく, aka Ichiban utsukushiku) (Akira Kurosawa, 1944) Kurosawa's second film as director was one I was willing to skip for its reputation as a documentary. That would have been a mis-step, as it's a curious combination of fiction and non-fiction—doing it's job, certainly, as a record of civilian efforts during the Japanese war effort, but Kurosawa used the documentary as a spine for a story about the workers, their motivations and their interaction, which did far more towards the purpose than merely showing parades and workers huddled over machines.

So, does that make it a documentary? Not really. Is any propaganda piece truly a documentary, or is it advocacy? Across the ocean, the Americans were making documentaries (by film-makers like Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston, Darryl F. Zanuck, and George Stevens) that mixed real footage with special effects and dramatized scenes, so the issue seems moot, not even worth bringing up.  But, it seems an essential piece of the Kurosawa puzzle.

Tasked with showing the efforts of the Nippon Kogaku optics factory in Hiratsuke that provided lenses for gunsights for Japanese Zeros (the original subject for the documentary, but shelved for budgetary reasons). The factory gave its full cooperation—the actors lived in the workers' dormitories and trained on their equipment. There are brief montages of the women workers at their jobs in the factory-settings and lots of shots of parading workers in formation with flags and instruments—a precision team showing off. There are lots of shots of that so the documentary aspect is satisfied.

But, that wasn't enough for Kurosawa. There's no story. The women working is "different" (certainly for that time) and inspiring; the parades, decorative. Fine for the results required by the government. But, all the parades in the world won't create a sense of sacrifice for the "common" man (or woman) to work towards victory; those are just pictures. What inspires those images?  What creates the precision, the dedication required for the effort?

So Kurosawa weaves a story of one dormitory of women who are given a goal: prove yourselves. An emergency effort is set up for maximum performance: the men must put out 100% effort; the women, 50%. The women (respectfully) revolt. Why half the effort of the men, when they can do just as much? The factory relents, granting permission to push the limits and see what they can do. Emboldened, the women knuckle down and re-double the work.

But it comes at a cost. The health of the women suffer. One actually leaves, taken home by her strict father who fears for her safety. The support for her by her co-workers impresses him, and he bows in respect, but she leaves anyway.*  Conflicts arise. The women begin to bicker over their relative efforts. But, the results are what matter, and the women win the respect of their peers, their supervisors and managers...and themselves.  

Kurosawa once said The Most Beautiful is the film of his "closest to my heart." Whether that's because it's his favorite, or because it's where he met, directed, argued with on-set and married actress Yôko Yaguchi would be speculation.

* She returns later in the film, and prances around, giddy with her return, but the emotion is not met by her co-workers, who leave to see what happened to their supervisor, who journeyed to retrieve her.  "It's good you're back, but get to work."