Keisuke Kinoshita - The River Fuefuki (1960)

It is impressive to see how focused Kinoshita's cinema is. Stylistically, every movie of his I have seen so far has been very different, but they all share the following characteristics: they are period pieces, they take place in the countryside, the main protagonists live in rather modest conditions, the theme of time and its effect on humans is central to all of them, there is some sort of musical narrative device and there is an emphasis on mobility and journeys. The River Fuefuki is no different. We follow a poor family over 70 years that sacrifices son after son to wars that seem pointless and cruel and threatening to the social fabric. The interesting thing is the perspective of the movie. The River Fuefuki is essentially a samurai movie told from the point of view of peasants. Punctuated by impressive and  dynamic battle scenes, the majority of the story takes place in and around the hut of the family. Only towards the end do we leave that environment and follow a procession of warriors who march straight to their deaths.

Evidently, The River Fuefuki is an anti-war drama but Kinoshita tries to go deeper. He does not simply show that war destroys lives and families, but points to an even more depressing fact. While humans (read: men) engage in battles and war,  the river continues to flow. Conflicts seem utterly pointless
when they don't seem to have any perceivable outcome. The family still continues its existence, no matter who the Lord is and no matter who won what battle. And more importantly, the river flows, unphased by what humans think is of importance. There is no sense that Kinoshita envisions a better world that glistens in familial bliss. Without cynicism he portrays human conflict as a perpetual calamity that affects the people touched by it (families that sacrifice sons who go to war) but that doesn't change their condition. By focusing on a poor family that has no say in the fortunes of their
country, Kinoshita shows that big politics and the resulting wars ultimately don't change much. The river just continues to flow.

Arguing as such, Kinoshita also makes the point that humans don't learn any lessons, and certainly not from history. The short battle sequences and subsequent homecoming of the warriors (or messengers bearing the news of another family loss) serve as repetitive rythmic elements, underlining the senseless perpetuation of violence throughout history. We never see the Lord who commands the troups, we never get a sense of why these battles are fought, all we see is a family member leaving for battle, fighting, and coming home (or not) - a sequence of events that does not change over the 70 year period the movie spans. Whenever someone important dies, there is a birth in the village where the family central to the plot resides, and the characters talk a lot about reincarnations. But these new-borns ultimately go to war as well, which accentuates the director's idea that history repeats itself - as pointless as it is.

The River Fuefuki is clearly a thesis movie and as such has to be enjoyed cerebrally. While certainly entertaining, one won't remember any memorable characters or dialogue. The central idea of the film counts more than customary narrative techniques, which makes the film interesting. But it is not particularly gripping and what was undoubtly meant as an emotional ending falls flat because we aren't invested enough in the characters. We get, however, plenty of interesting visuals. Kinoshita experiments with color filters and frequently infuses the impecable black and white photography with smears of bright color that look like the brushstrokes of a painter. I haven't been able to find any information on the purpose of this visual exercise (it certainly is not warranted by anything in the script) but it looks interesting in a lot of cases. Kinoshita also employs a singing narrator. The old woman appears on screen from time to time, but like a lot of elements in the movie, Kinoshita doesn't really build on his initial impulse to use her as a greek chorus and her interventions do not add a whole lot to the narrative.