Twenty-Four Eyes (Ijushi No Hitomi)

Directed by Kinoshita Keisuke
Starring Hideki Goko, Hideko Takamine, Yukio Watanabe, Makoto Miyagawa, Takero Terashita
1954

Twenty-Four Eyes is a chronicle of a teacher and her pupils in a small inland sea village beginning in 1928 and carrying through twenty years of their joys and sorrow. The village is quite and peaceful but its harmony is soon broken by the war. The school teacher is forced to resign when books she believes are good for the children are condemned as "Red" literature. Many boys are sent to off to the war. After the war is over, the teacher returns to her job and gathers with some of her old students to reminisce her husband and the boys who died in the war.

Twenty-Four Eyes is a haunting, compassionately realized, and profoundly affecting portrait of humanism, innocence, and the personal toll of war. Filmed from a low camera angle, and using exquisitely composed crane, long, and medium shots, Keisuke Kinoshita visually conveys a sense of distance that, in turn, reflects the innocence of the children's perspective and the seeming insularity of the villagers: the long bicycle commute; the children's outdoor activities singing folksongs; Miss Oishi traversing the empty school yard after being admonished for broaching the subject of communism in class. The lives of the people in the island are presented in a very touching and sincere reserved camera style.

This is one of Kinoshita's masterpieces.

Award:
1955 Best Foreign Film Golden Globe