Few directors were capable of capturing the horrors of the post-war experience than those who hailed from Japan, with many of the greatest filmmakers to ever work in the medium being those who experienced the hardship caused to their country as a result of the Second World War, which wrought havoc on Japanese society in terms of their cultural and economic fabric. Watching any film produced in Japan anywhere between the late 1940s and early 1960s is bound to carry some discourse surrounding these changes, especially when it comes to looking at how it set off a chain of events that altered the entire national trajectory, which was previously seen as being immovable and secure. This concept and everything that surrounds it is explored beautifully by the legendary Akira Kurosawa in No Regrets for Our Youth (Japanese: わが青春に悔なし), which looks at life in the years preceding the Second World War, particularly focusing on the trials and tribulations of a family that have always existed adjacent to the world of politics and economic theory, with their academic background making them a steady component of a society that depended on its intellectuals just as much as it did its politicians and lawmakers. The focus is through the eyes of a young woman coming into her own identity, which becomes a challenge as she is confronted with life-altering events that change her entire perception of not only her country, but her entire understanding of humanity, which is captured in vivid detail by a director whose steadfast commitment to exploring the human condition remains almost entirely unmatched, as demonstrated in nearly every frame of this achingly beautiful and deeply compelling drama that shows both the best and worst our world has to offer.

While his name has come to be indicative of nothing but quality and established brilliance that made him one of the greatest artists of his generation, we have to realize that Kurosawa was a young director at one point, and someone whose existence didn’t immediately demand respect and devotion, but rather was the subject of growing curiosity amongst viewers at the time. No Regrets for Our Youth is one of his earliest efforts, with the director having only been working for a few years by the time he set out to make this film. It was coincidentally the first time he was not making a historical film, but rather one that was more contemporary (especially if we disqualify The Most Beautiful from contention, as it is mostly seen as a propaganda film by many modern theorists), which was a change of pace for a director who peddled mainly in films that carried a more epic scope. Despite it being an early work, Kurosawa shows that his assured hand as a filmmaker was present from the start, with the film telling a compelling story that is fashioned out of the most raw and unfiltered materials available to the director. Written in collaboration with Eijirō Hisaita and Keiji Matsuzaki, who work closely with the director to help him realize his vision, the film is a sprawling critique of Japanese society in the 1930s, which was a system that was unknowingly on the brink of collapse, which makes the fact that this story was told in the aftermath of the events that would call this supposedly secure system into question all the more enticing. There are many captivating conversations embedded in No Regrets for Our Youth, and the attention to placing equal emphasis on the serious political discourse and the more intimate, character-based storyline makes for a suitably invigorating narrative, one that leaps effortlessly between different themes, which is something that the director would continue to employ in the vast majority of the films he would go on to create.

Gaining an entry point into No Regrets for Our Youth can be a slight challenge, especially since it seems that a lot of the film requires the viewer to have some pre-existing knowledge of the historical events that surround it, with Kurosawa structuring much of the plot loosely around the Takigawa Incident, in which a university professor was relieved of his duties after lecturing on a particular subject that was seen as being in fierce opposition to the more accepted tenets of Japanese politics and culture, which set off a string of protests and other events that brought such discussions into the public consciousness in a way that had never been seen before. However, as helpful as this context may be, it isn’t mandatory, especially since the director does well in summarizing it in a way that makes sense and feels logical, allowing those without much prior understanding of the subject to still have access into the general socio-cultural milieu in which the film is taking place. There is an abundance of detail to the setting, and Kurosawa should be praised not only for constructing this world, but doing so in a way that is actively engaging and very interesting – a lesser filmmaker may have been weighed down by the unnecessary details of the real-world events, which may have made for a more solid historical drama, but would otherwise detract from the more compelling aspects of the story, which is essentially a case-by-case analysis of various people who witnessed the changing nature of Japanese society firsthand, focusing on their different responses, and how each one of them saw these alterations to a centuries-old system as being either an inevitability or the result of irreconcilable events that could have been avoided with a bit of foresight – and the debate between the two is found at the foundation of this film, and explored with a lot of dedication by the director and his cast.

Much like Kurosawa, watching Setsuko Hara’s performance in No Regrets for Our Youth feels like quite a disorienting experience in terms of situating it within her career – as one of the most gifted actresses to ever be captured on film, she embodied an entire generation of Japanese cinema, despite only being active for less than two decades before retiring from acting as a whole. Unlike Kurosawa, who had only made his directorial debut three years before, Hara had already been acting since her early teenage years, having about a decade on the esteemed director – and yet, their collaboration brings out the youthful energy that is present in both of them. This is an instance where being more young and naive was beneficial to both Kurosawa and Hara, who utilize their fresher perspective in order to capture an image of Japan that could only be told by those who were in their younger years, with the more hopeful perspective being integral to the eventual impact the film makes. Inarguably, Hara is absolutely magnetic – her chameleonic sensibilities made her a good fit for any director that she worked with, but Kurosawa showed a different side of her. Ozu, another one of her great collaborators, tended to place her in roles in which she was far more fragile and virginal, while Kurosawa gave her roles that often openly contradicted this archetype, with her performance as Yukie in No Regrets for Our Youth being a masterful change of pace from the very first moments. Her incredible physicality and emotive bandwidth is put to exceptionally good use, and whether passionately discussing current affairs and the impact that are bound to make, or demonstrating a more earthly charm, Hara is simply extraordinary, this film showcases every one of her immense talents with such dedication.

No Regrets for Our Youth is a fascinating document of a film – it tells the story of the pre-war period, but from the perspective of those who were standing in the aftermath of this war, and as a result, it feels like a lot of the commentary is not only aimed at the specific historical events that the film was covering, but also what we knew was imminent, which makes for a suitably multilayered film. It may lack a bit of polish in comparison to the films Kurosawa would make in later years, but this kind of approach does work very well, since it adds a level of gravitas to what is one of the director’s more gritty and confrontational works. It seems a bizarre remark, but you could easily see that he was a director still trying to find his footing as an artist, and this is certainly his first considerable step into the realm of becoming one of the most celebrated directors in his nation’s history. Beautifully poetic and made with the dedication of someone who genuinely cares about the subject matter (to the point where it often feels as if he is communicating directly to the global audience through this film), No Regrets for Our Youth is a powerful piece of cinema, a riveting but deeply thought-provoking story of searching for one’s identity in a time when independence was discouraged, and stepping outside one’s comfort zone could become a problem – but yet, time dictates that change is inevitable, and this film explores this at every turn, gradually amassing a poignant series of moments that are woven together by a master craftsman, who provides us with a truly enduring tale of resilience and tenacity in times of crisis, a common theme in these kinds of films, but one that feels all the more impactful when handled by someone with as firm a grasp on his craft as Kurosawa, truly one of our greatest artists.