Akira Ishihama has never spoken to Hitomi Nozoe. She a poor girl who lives with her sister in the cheap apartment building, just opposite his window in his upper middle class home. Some times she looks out her window as he looks out his, and they smile shyly at each other. She is dying of a lung disease, goes the local gossip. He is studying hard to get good enough grades to go to college. His father promises him whatever he wants if he passes. Ishihama wants to send her to a sanitarium, but his father is doubtful. He worries his son is being played for a sucker, but agrees: if he passes, he'll pay.
Masaki Kobayashi's second movie as a director has a script by his friend Keisuke Kinoshita, but his handling is far from Kinoshita's. The problem lies not in the people, all of whom are well meaning and kind -- Yasushi Nagata as Miss Nozoe's evil uncle aside; his appearance at her building causes her to rush in terror into the snowy Christmas landscape and collapse in front of a Christian Church. The problem is G*d's intentions, as indicated by the opposing strains of two of Bach's pieces: "Air on the G String", a piece which celebrates G*d's love, and "Toccata & Fugue in D Minor", a piece which celebrates the mystery and anger of the Lord. Surely the fact that Ishihama's family is Christian makes this a significant choice for Chûji Kinoshita, who scored the movie. It's not the evil and self-serving power structure who threaten Miss Nozoe, and whom Ishihama must struggle against. It's G*d and textbooks. Or perhaps this is simply His goad to force Ishihama to study for His purposes.
Clearly Kobayashi's associates wanted this movie to succeed; that's probably why his cousin, Kinuyo Tanaka, took a supporting role. With its familiar themes of young, unrequited love, it's a little soppy for my taste, and the symbolism is laid on heavily, but it's very well done.
