Phoenix (1947)

 Keisuke Kinoshita's "Phoenix"


I very much enjoyed the first Keisuke Kinoshita film that I watched, 1946's "Morning for the Osone Family." I even enjoyed his follow up, 1947's "Phoenix." However, I feel as though I 'got' the film early on while watching, which made the first half thoroughly enjoyable. As the film went on, (even thought it was only 1 hour and 20 something minutes) I felt that my thematic understanding of the film had already been understood and the remaining final section of the film felt a bit uninteresting to me because of that. 

The film centers on a woman reminiscing about the time she spent with her military husband before his death. Throughout the film, the woman goes through many hardships and difficulties. The thematic point of the film is that she must emerge from this hardships on the other side and maintain a sense of purpose and fulfillment, even though she is a widow that nobody wants. As Japan was now on the other side of the war, the film offered a comment on emerging from fire and hardship and continuing on anyway you can.



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