A position that is easily identified with and only feels more logical as the film progresses, despite seemingly contradictory irrationality in its immediate nature: the possibility of atomic disaster at a moment's notice as the world looks on in subdued dread and deliberate ignorance, ill-equipped to confront the existential terror of the Bomb and perhaps moreso to help those without the means to ignore it. Society turns in on itself as a means of psychological protection. Mifune is one of very few actors who can deliver such intense, furious and palpable emotion while maintaining a level of believability and clarity of purpose. The final 30 minutes I thought were devastating.
