The River Fuefuki (1960)

The River Fuefuki
Directed by Keisuki Kinoshita
Written by Keisuki Kinoshita from a novel by Shichiru Fukazawa
1960/Japan
Shochiku Ofuna
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] You cannot step into the same river twice. Heraclitus [/box]

Kinoshita was certainly an uneven director.  I thought this anti-war film was up there with his brilliant .

It is a time of chaos and factional warfare among warlords and their samurai.  The hot-headed son of a simple farming family goes off to the war and makes a name for himself by catching an enemy general.  Grandpa congratulates himself for encouraging the boy to go to war.  Dad wasn’t so sure it was a good idea.  Dad, however, is honored by being asked to bury the afterbirth of the Lord’s son.  Grandpa insists on going himself and is killed for defiling the ground with his blood when he injures himself with the shovel.

The war goes on for generations.  Bloodlust hits at random among the offspring.  A non-combatant and his wife (Hideko Takamine) remain farmers as they grow old.  They are unable to prevent sons from going off to the war.  The samurai sons chastise them for ingratitude to the Lord.  It seems more like the Lord has been ungrateful to them.

This movie was shot in black and white and then hand-tinted, much like an old silent movie.  Some of the frames are selectively colored with masks and others are solidly tinted. Some of the war scenes are shown via a montage of stills.  The unusual technique works out surprisingly well.

The story is moving through its sad climax.  Takamine spends most of the film as a very old lady, disappearing into a character completely different than the one she played in  the same year.  She is one of the great actresses.  Recommended.

Trailer – no subtitles but you can see the way Kinoshita melds black and white with color