Sincerity (AKA A Sincere Heart) (Magokoro)
Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
Written by Keisuke Kinoshita
1953/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu

This was director Kobayashi’s first feature film.  He would go on to do infinitely better work.

Hiroshi is studying hard for his university entrance exams with the help of a tutor who is engaged to his sister.  He would rather be playing rugby.  His father promises him anything he wants if he manages to get into the elite school he has in mind for him.  Initially, Hiroshi thinks he would like to travel.

Then a young woman and her invalid sister move into the flat across the way from Hiroshi’s window.  The room has only one small window which does not have a veiw of the sky.  Hiroshi begins a sort of silent communication with the sick girl and eventually shows her the moon and sun using a hand mirror.  He becomes seriously infatuated.

After a while, the girls’ evil uncle appears and the sick girl flees into the snow where she collapses.  Hiroshi and his coach find her and take her to a doctor.  Now Hiroshi becomes obsessed with doing well on his exams so he can get his father to pay for a sanitiorium for the girl.

This seems more like a Kinoshita movie than like any of Kobayashi’s later work (Harakiri, The Human Condition, Kwaidan).  Buckets of tears are shed and the girl who played the doomed consumptive has played the same part more than once for Kinoshita and even for Kurosawa.  Yet, it’s not a badly made movie and you can see some glints of Kobayashi’s future prowess in the scenes where Hiroshi and his sister playfully chase each other through the house.

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