Pocałunki

Boy meets girl. He is a delivery boy, she's an artist’s model. Their fathers are in prison: his is a politician accused of electoral fraud; hers is a governmental employee charged with embezzlement. Over the course of one day, the young pair hit the beach, go to the races, attempt to reconcile with their families, and fall in love. A snapshot of the aimless, post-war Japanese youth brimming with vitality and compassion, Masumura’s wondrous debut is a sublime piece of the popular 1950s Sun Tribe genre, significantly deviating from convention by featuring underprivileged protagonists. Laced with the kind of carefree optimism rarely figuring in his subsequent work and containing little of the artifice that would define his filmmaking, Kisses is a singular entry point to Masumura’s colossal oeuvre. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)