The Most Beautiful
(Ichiban utsukushiku)

Soon turning to a steadfast pacifism, Akira Kurosawa commented that he was genuinely attached to this film made in 1944 as a contribution to the war effort. Depicting voluntary workers engaged in the manufacture of precision lenses for gunsights, Kurosawa’s mise-en-scène – enriched by a prior period of meticulous observation – uses an immersive effect by magnifying these women at their daily work to support the army. In a new restored version, and aside from its propagandist dimension, The Most Beautiful portends the filmmaker’s propensity for a cinema concerned with social realities. Those Who Make Tomorrow and No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), One Wonderful Sunday (1947) and Drunken Angel (1948) will follow on, painting a subtle moral portrait of Japan immediately after the war. JB