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KAGIRI NAKI ZENSHIN
(Forward Forever)
A NIKKATSU PICTURE
Out of the original story by Yasujiro Ozu, who directed “ What Did the Ladies Forget?”, Tomu Uchida has made the film play “ Forward Forever As mentioned elsewhere in this series, Yasujiro Ozu has so far made a good many pictures whose subjects are taken from the life of the petite bourgeoisie and hence is a skilled hand at projecting its characteristics via the screen. Moreover, the man who adapted the story for the movie, Yasutaro Yagi, is the most gifted of the Nikkatsu staff of continuity writers. It is to be expected, therefore, that Tomu Uchida, who directed “ The Theatre of Life ” the year before, should turn out a cinema bien jaite.
The axis round which the story revolves is the case of an aged office clerk who had served the same firm continuously for over twenty years, but who, on learning that in three years he would be discharged under the firm’s regulations governing the age limit of employees, loses his mind. Instead of showing this in a dramatically realistic fashion, however, the story is depicted, sometimes comically and at other times as merely a chimerical product of the leading character’s imagination. So that the atmosphere engendered thereby is, on the whole, not so depressing as it might have been. Still, the idea of a petit bourgeois, with a snug little fortune tucked away for the rainy day, becoming mentally unbalanced. for the above-mentioned reason, is a bit far-fetched.
It seems to us that Tomu Uchida is better equipped for the handling of stories with a forthright themes than film plays like the one under review which boasts of a good many clever comic turns. It may be that Ozu's original story has, in this respect, been something of a handicap. Nevertheless, in so far as his actual work as director is concerned, it is as scrupulous and as splendid as ever. As for the actors, Isamu Kosugi’s portrayal, who is cast as the leading character, is the most convincing of all. Pretty Yukiko Todoroki also gives a good account of herself.
TADASI IIZIMA
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