SOMEWHERE UNDER THE BROAD SKY / SOMEWHERE BENEATH THE WIDE SKY (KONO HIROI SORA NO DOKOKA NI). Viewed on Streaming. Subtitles = five (5) stars; lighting continuity = two (2) stars; sound = two (2) stars; "restoration" = 1.5 stars. Director Masaki Kobayashi's rather limp "slice-of-life" tale (based on an underwritten script) deals mostly with family generational conflicts that arise as a result of the recently ended war in the Pacific (a favorite theme of the Director's). The family lives in and above a successful small store in an area of Tokyo that apparently escaped being fire bombed. Acting talent (especially actresses Yoshiko Kuga and Hideko Takamine) is pretty much squandered due to lack of direction and trivial (mostly emotionless) dialog. Sadly, Takamine has not much more than a cameo role (played with a limp due to a civilian-injury from the war). Technically the film and the Criterion print on view are a combined disaster zone! The movie is loaded with damaged frames and other visual artifacts. Sound seems to have a badly-in-need-of-repair blender always running in the background (some of this racket may be due to a noisy camera and poor microphone placement). Cinematography (narrow screen, black and white) is okay although tracking shots are much too obvious. Lighting consistency between scenes as well as for scene-shot sequences is missing in action and a major distraction. Viewers unless familiar with Kansai-Ben dialect will be mostly dependent on subtitles which need some serious editing. They often overload the viewer by injudiciously attempting to translate just about all of each line reading with flash rates that are likely to stymie even the most practiced speed reader (best to keep a finger hovering over the pause button). Decidedly disappointing. WILLIAM FLANIGAN, PhD.
Review of Somewhere Under the Broad Sky
