This early movie by Keisuke Kinoshta is unique in that it features a screenplay by Akira Kurosawa. But it is very unlike most of the movies Kurosawa is known for in the West. Instead of being a costumed action movie, it is a contemporary (well, 1948) light-hearted drama. The story is about two unscrupulous real estate agents who buy a house on the cheap hoping to flip it for a profit. The only impediment is a family of tenants who are too poor to move. The two men try to get rid of the family so they can sell the house, but the family is just so nice...This isn't a particularly deep movie but it does have a few things to say about human decency and the place of art in a materialistic society. If the good characters are just too good to be true, well, that's just part of this movie's charm. Overall it's a very light movie with some darkness at the edges that gets by on its good-naturedness.
Review of The Portrait
