A Kinoshita Christmas

Keisuke Kinoshita’s poignant Morning for the Osone Family looks at grief over World War II from the perspective of one Japanese family. Shot immediately following the country’s surrender, when directors like Kinoshita were no longer under the thumb of wartime government censorship, the film was a direct indictment of the nation’s imperialist efforts. This emotional film, now available for the first time on DVD in our new Eclipse set Kinoshita and World War II, begins with a beauty of a scene, set at Christmas, in which we are introduced to the Osones singing a Japanese-language version of “Silent Night.” It’s a moment of heavenly peace before the family is torn apart by war.