The Most Beautiful

"The Most Beautiful" shares the weaknesses of most propaganda films, but it is interesting and moving in the picture it draws of traditionally-raised Japanese girls doing important work during wartime, motivated by duty and shame.

Kurosawa would later deal at some length with Japan's identity of postwar defeatism, so it's an interesting historical footnote to see him work so directly for the war effort. But it's blatant propaganda, moving on dubious moral ground where everyone is willing to sacrifice health, family, and personality for the state.

Everyone remembers John Ford's and Hitchcock's WWII films - but what about Kurosawa? A rally call for lower-middle-class Japanese women, it lacks suspense (read: drama) and falls flat for rewatchability. However, it is probably one of the more beautiful propaganda films after Riefenstahl, and is worth watching once for fans of Kurosawa's work.

Clear propaganda and not the war film Kurosawa was hoping to make, but the state of the on-going battle dictated what he was able/allowed to create. As with all his works, the framing, lighting, & cinematography in general are solid. The sentiment & attitude of actors/characters being filmed during active wartime make this a very interesting historical artifact with some somber meditations on nationalism. Sadly, the story & content of the film itself are slow, melodramatic, & barely engaging.

Em honra do centenário de Yôko Yaguchi. Vixe, deviam mostrar esse filme não só como fazer propaganda política em tempos de guerra, mas também como escravidão neoliberal. Vixe de novo, ainda bem que o Akira pelo menos ganhou uma esposa fazendo isso. BlurayRip no MakingOff.

This one is from early in Akira Kurosawa's career, and more importantly, the war was still heavily going on, something which the story here is related to. Those two factors should probable make Ichiban utsukushiku [The Most Beautiful] (1944) one of his least impressive films. The girls are positive and root on for their cause, but I was not engaged by this, rather bored, which makes it clear that this was not Kurosawa's most beautiful moment.

A curiosity at best. Straight propaganda but Kurosawa's touch boosts the score by a bit.

This movie wasn't so much bad as it was just a boring propaganda film. Kurosawa adds a little bit of drama and some solid shots (like the one in the moonlight) in the last act of the movie, but it's not enough to salvage it as a whole.

Kurosawa is my favorite director of all time, and I watched this only as a curiosity piece. I knew that it was a wartime propaganda piece and though beautifully shot, it really isn't noteworthy at all. It does capture the Japanese war mindset rather well, and it does give the viewer insight into what the Japanese think and feel about their country and its cause.

45.500

39.750

Pleasant enough; even though it's as black-and-white as propaganda gets, there is a mild amount of dramatic weight and grace throughout, and it's not a chore to watch.

The Most Beautiful is a war film like no other. The film however extends far into Japanese society during WWII, thus it should not be labelled as simply a "war film". After all, the film does not compromise of any war scenes! The obvious paradox of a "war film" totally excluding any "war scenes" highly contributes to the magnitude of this beautiful piece of filmmaking directed and meshed together greatly by Akira Kurosawa. The film, produced in 1944 (during the war

While beautifully photographed, it's pure propaganda with predictable resolutions to every problem that arises. Kurosawa was never good at representing females, and coupled with the fact that there is a hive mind mentality being espoused, what's left is a cast of very flat characters. Even the few who are singled out are barely more than thin sketches, all with the same ethics, personality traits and ambitions (i.e., fierce devotion to the imperialist cause). Lovely to look at, but a mess.

The last two scenes of this film are exquisite, and give a sense of what Kurosawa was capable of. However, these scenes are preceded by 80 minutes of melodrama, ironically draining all the actual drama from the story. Most of the film is overly contrived, with the narrative bouncing predictably from one extreme to another. This is worth seeing as a curiosity from early in Kurosawa's career, but isn't worth much on its own.