Walking Kurosawa's Road: One Wonderful Sunday

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.

One Wonderful Sunday (aka 素晴らしき日曜日 Subarashiki Nichiyōbi)(1947) 35 yen. That's all that one young lovers, Yuzo and Masako (Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita) have to spend on their weekly Tokyo sojourn, where they meet to spend time with each other and away from their humdrum jobs that don't pay much more than their rent money. It would be cause for celebration, but they are constantly surrounded by limitations and disappointments. For young lovers, 35 yen doesn't buy much of dreams.

It is the time of American occupation and Westernization is everywhere—in the fashion, in the music, and the kids are playing stick-ball in the street. Western classical music is playing at concerts (and director Kurosawa uses it on the soundtrack), and nightclubs have the same feel and aesthetic of ones in New York (upstairs, anyway).

But, times are hard. Yuzo and Masako have dreams. But, everything they encounter on this Sunday wakes them up to reality. They want to get married, but they can't because they can't afford to, but, on a whim, go house-shopping. A new building is nice but is far out of their price range. More affordable is a dingy interior apartment with no windows which the former tenant, who is glad to leave, doesn't even recommend. Masako tours the places with hope, but Yuzo becomes more discouraged, despite her efforts to cheer him up. 

He'll stay that way until they see a handful of kids playing stick-ball in the streets, the kids imitating their favorite players. Yuzo asks to take a turn batting, but a solid hit manages to crash into a bakery, smashing sweet rolls that the baker insists they buy—even if he offers a discount. They split the food between themselves and the kids, and head for the zoo, but the caged animals only depresses Yuzo and reminds him of his own situation. He has a brainstorm: an Army buddy of his has opened a snazzy nightclub-restaurant and Yuzo decides to take Masako to show off the place and maybe impress her—and maybe get a job there.

The owner won't even see him; Yuzo is consigned to a backroom which he shares with a black marketer, who tells him the owner won't even see him and probably will buy him off with a drink and maybe some cash. That's exactly what happens, but Yuzo is too proud to take the money. But, he doesn't get a job, either.

The two decide to go to a concert—Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony," significantly—they have just enough money to afford general seating tickets. But, while they're waiting in line, scalpers buy up all the cheaper general tickets, leaving only the more expensive seats...which they can't afford for both of them. Yuzo challenges the scalpers and gets beaten up for his outrage. The rage and humiliation he feels makes him want to break off the date and go back to his apartment. Masako follows him seeking to console him. But, Yuzo feels such a loss of face that he turns on Masako, asserting himself physically, which makes her feel betrayed and fearful and she runs out of the apartment, leaving Yuzo alone.

She eventually comes back and all Yuzo can do is apologize to her for his behavior. For him, it's all or nothing. But Masako's more nuanced approach to life sways him to go out with her again to have tea with their remaining funds. They can just afford it...until they get the bill. What they've ordered is more expensive and they can't afford it. Yuzo barters his coat to make the difference.

But, that experience inspires him. He fantasizes with Masako that they will start their own tea shop and restaurant, with good food "for the masses" with no hidden fees and quality. He has learned to take a bad experience and turn it into something positive, a trait that inspires a final act in which the rules of reality are broken, and, like Kurosawa does in the film, makes the most out of a situation that on the surface seems limiting, but by exploiting the potential and using the means available with imagination, turns into something that can only be described as "magical."

One Wonderful Sunday is a fine example of making the best of limited means. At the time before the film's production, Toho Studios had suffered from a walkout of its top actors who'd left to form their own production company. Toho began a search for new actors and, unsure of the box office potential of films without known stars, lowered the budgets of potential films to avoid risking disaster at the box office. Kurosawa, with his co-script-writer Keinosuki Uekusa, a childhood friend, took a page from the post-war Italian films (which would be called "neo-realist" once the scholars got hold of them) and filmed on location with hidden cameras and the simplest of stories with a small roster of characters. The limited means kept the film costs low along with the risks and allowed Toho to continue operating with contemporary, personal films.

Kurosawa always favored location work, using natural environments and incorporating it in the fabric of the story-telling, letting Nature inform and even comment on the story. Here, the two lovers are subject to rainstorms making them take cover, dousing their hopes, and the very wind becomes mystical in the finale.

You work with what you have, and Kurosawa in the finale has the two lovers reach a crisis point between hope and despair and as Kurosawa has exhausted every element—the two lovers, the empty orchestra shell they visit, and the bleak and lonely wind that blows through it—he turns to the last participant in the process, the audience, in much the same way as Peter Pan asks the audience of the theater-piece to clap to save the life of Tinkerbelle. That moment is a bit twee—it is for children's benefit, after all—but in Kurosawa's working, it is an act of desperation, as he moves the camera forward, isolating Masako as she turns to address the audience:

"Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause! Please find it in your hearts to cheer him one! Please! There are so many poor young lovers like us in this world. Please give us all a big hand. We're freezing in the cold winds of this world. Do it for poor young lovers everywhere. Please cheer us on. Please help us dream beautiful dreams. Please, a round of applause. Please. Please applaud. Please! All of you!"

Kurosawa was distressed that audiences in Japan did not clap. They did in France, though, when the film made its way to the City of Lovers, and the film ends with Schubert's sublime Symphony No. 8, considered the first of the "Romantic" symphonies, but has been hung with the mantle of "Unfinished." And on those notes, Kurosawa leaves the lovers with their story unresolved.

It's a beautiful film, small in scope, and with no pageantry at all, but full of risk and feeling and a certain amount of desperation both in its story and in its making.

I hope, given the opportunity, I would have applauded.