I continue my Kurosawa marathon without slowing down. This time, at the summer house, I wanted to get rid of three short films by watching them one after another on the limited mobile screen I had: The Most Beautiful (1944), The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (1945) and Those Who Make Tomorrow (1946). Since their duration was short, it made more sense to me to discuss all three of them together. To me, this trio was like a troubled interlude that made you feel how much pressure Kurosawa was under from the studios, the war and the censorship while he was trying to find his own voice.
Machines, Tears and Propaganda: The Most Beautiful I first started with The Most Beautiful. The film tells the story of female workers producing lenses in a factory during the war. To be frank, the film seemed to me like an intense propaganda work that reflected the spirit of that period from beginning to end. But still, while watching it, Kurosawa’s documentary-like shooting style did not catch my attention. The tired faces of the women and the endless sounds of machinery made me feel claustrophobic, almost like the opening scenes of an industrial cosmic horror movie.
To me, the gigantic optical instruments in the factory were like the teeth of a metallic monster crushing individuality. A Giant “Bluff” Dice: The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail Among these three films, this was definitely the one that drew me in the most and kept me in front of the screen. We watch a group of samurai in ancient Japan, disguised as monks and trying to pass through a heavily guarded border gate to protect their masters.
It felt like I was watching a party of players in a tabletop FRP session trying to overcome the impossible obstacle set by the head prisoner, using only persuasion and “bluff (Deception)” dice rolls. In my opinion, the psychological tension, verbal acrobatics and attempts to hide identity rather than swords being drawn were a much smarter choice than action. For me, the film was one of the most absurd but most cleverly constructed Kurosawa works I have ever watched, because of its strange balance of humor and tension.
Directing in Limbo: Those Who Make Tomorrow While watching this movie, I honestly couldn’t feel the masterful Kurosawa texture in the other two. It was so obvious that it was shot under the influence of labor unions, strikes and, frankly, the studio, it seemed to me as if Kurosawa’s heart had never beaten on the set of this film. I asked myself, “I wonder if Kurosawa didn’t shoot every scene of this movie?” I even thought, because the transitions between scenes and the sharp visual geometry of the master felt quite weak here.
Philosophy and Symbolism Notes As promised, I keep the symbolism tab in each movie open for this trio as well. The philosophical subtexts that caught my eye in the films of this complex period and that I interpreted in my own world were as follows: Lenses and the Loss of Individuality (The Most Beautiful): I think the effort to make those optical lenses perfectly in the film was a symbol of the Japanese society’s obligation to destroy the individual and become a “perfect part of the state machine”.
As the characters looked into those lenses, I felt as if they were losing their own identities and desires in those glasses. Border Gate and Masks (The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail): The samurai disguised as monks and that incredibly tense interrogation scene made me question the social masks people wear to survive. I think Kurosawa wanted to make us feel that even the most honorable warriors had to put aside their huge egos and swords and become “actors” as if they were on a giant theater stage in order to survive.
Stepping on the Tiger’s Tail Metaphor: I think even the name of the movie is a tremendous metaphor. To silently glide past a huge and deadly danger without resorting to violence… It seemed to me that real power was not always about waving a sword, but about manipulating that danger with intelligence. Last Word: I have eliminated Kurosawa’s interlude period, which was spent under studio pressures and obligations, in one sentence.
Especially Those Who Step on the Tiger’s Tail was the real hidden gem among this trio for me. We are slowly finishing the first stages of the marathon. Now I feel ready to move on to the period when Kurosawa literally took the reins and built his own cinema.
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