One should be very careful when one uses superlatives, but, 'Twenty-Four Eyes' is one of the best movies ever made. Moreover, it is more than ever highly topical, albeit shot in black and white. It is the story of the emotional link between a junior teacher and her class of 12 children.
Keisuke Kinoshita's movie tackles directly such crucial issues as freedom of speech (if you speak out against the war, you could lose your job), as calling a spade a spade (a war means simply killing people), as the choice between war and peace, between love and hate, between care (for the children) and selfishness and between sincerity and deceit or worse denouncement. His movie makes one understand that there is an all powerful authority which intervenes behind the scene in people's lives, by manipulating public opinion and by trying to turn the population (and mostly its children and young men) into deaf-mute pawns in order to use them as cannon fodder. Another means is starving the dissidents by firing them. Keisuke Kinoshita's characters are anchored in real life with its poverty (nothing to eat, or no money to go to school), its illnesses (tuberculosis), its accidents and, most importantly, the war and its victims.
Keisuke Kinoshita knows what true art is. It is not an expression of emotions, but the creation of emotions (involvement) into the spectator's heart. His movie stands in sharp contrast with the actual avalanche of movie products pieced together with Meccano aliens (concocted with special effects) fighting human killers, while both are shouting their immoral gospel of violence and death. A truly cold world, and in no way the warm atmosphere created by Keisuke Kinoshita's school teacher.
'Twenty-Four Eyes' was shot by a director with a big heart, who made simply an everlasting sublime movie. A must see.
Keisuke Kinoshita's movie tackles directly such crucial issues as freedom of speech (if you speak out against the war, you could lose your job), as calling a spade a spade (a war means simply killing people), as the choice between war and peace, between love and hate, between care (for the children) and selfishness and between sincerity and deceit or worse denouncement. His movie makes one understand that there is an all powerful authority which intervenes behind the scene in people's lives, by manipulating public opinion and by trying to turn the population (and mostly its children and young men) into deaf-mute pawns in order to use them as cannon fodder. Another means is starving the dissidents by firing them. Keisuke Kinoshita's characters are anchored in real life with its poverty (nothing to eat, or no money to go to school), its illnesses (tuberculosis), its accidents and, most importantly, the war and its victims.
Keisuke Kinoshita knows what true art is. It is not an expression of emotions, but the creation of emotions (involvement) into the spectator's heart. His movie stands in sharp contrast with the actual avalanche of movie products pieced together with Meccano aliens (concocted with special effects) fighting human killers, while both are shouting their immoral gospel of violence and death. A truly cold world, and in no way the warm atmosphere created by Keisuke Kinoshita's school teacher.
'Twenty-Four Eyes' was shot by a director with a big heart, who made simply an everlasting sublime movie. A must see.