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eclipse series 7: Postwar Kurosawa  
 
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I Live in Fear (Criterion Collection)

 

  Written and Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Japan 1955 / Drama / Family / Psyuchological / 99 min / Black & White / Monaural / 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio / NTSC /  In Japanese with Optional English Subtitles

Akemi Negishi, Minoru Chiaki, Masao Shimizu, Takashi Shimura, Eiko Miyoshi, Toshiro Mifune, Haruko Togo, Noriko Sengoku.

Both the final film of this period in which Akira Kurosawa would directly wrestle with the demons of the Second World War and his most literal representation of living in an atomic age, the galvanizing I Live in Fear presents Toshiro Mifune as an elderly, stubborn businessman so fearful of a nuclear attack that he resolves to move his reluctant family to South America. With this mournful film, the director depicts a society emerging from the shadows but still terrorized by memories of the past and anxieties for the future.