Review - Tragedy of Japan

June 12, 2021

Tragedy of Japan (a.k.a. A Japanese Tragedy) – Japan, 1953

What remains when the bombs stop falling and the dust settles? On a surface level, this question seems easy to answer. We can count buildings and see with our own two eyes the companies still operating, albeit at much less capacity. We can observe the buses and trolleys, the restaurants whose kitchens still churn out delightful meals, and the government buildings still able to dispense aid and operate essential services. Perhaps, a better question, would be what has been lost. To really unravel this, we must look past the rubble and the before-and-after shots of devastated cities. We must even look beyond numbers, past casualty counts, and dollars and cents. Instead, we must put society under a microscope, for it is only when we witness the voids and chasms that now exist that we can truly begin to assess the costs of war on culture and society.

Keisuke Kinoshita’s Tragedy of Japan offers such a view of Japan in 1953. It begins with a startling overview of the country post-World War II – first the war crime trials and scenes of the emperor being greeted by enthusiastic crowds during an ill-conceived tour intended to humanize the former leader, and then, eight years later, protest-filled streets, harsh police tactics, a thriving black market, a dearth of political ingenuity, and a spike in crime and murder. This represents Kinoshita’s view of Japan on a macro-level. To get a personal view, he then zeros in on Haruko (impressively played by Yuko Mochizuku), a single mother supporting two young adults. The son, Seicchi (Masumi Taura), is a university student; the daughter, Utaka (Yoko Katsuragi), is learning sewing and English. The mother works at a hostess at a local inn.

Had there not been a war, their story would likely have gone something like this: The children are raised in a two-parent household; they adore their parents and see them as sources of wisdom; they focus on their studies, believing that better days await those who study hard and play by the rules; marriages - most likely arranged ones - and children follow; and the final shot is one of proud parents, content in the knowledge that their efforts have paid off. The status quo would have remained; their culture reinforced. It is an alternative that the characters in Tragedy of Japan seem acutely aware of; some even speak of it the way one would of the great love that got away, that mythical character whose sudden emergence in your mind often reflects extreme dissatisfaction and an overwhelming sense of regret.

Kinoshita gives us snippets of this view throughout the film. A number of women speak of their husbands as if they were scraps the war forced on them. In their minds, their counterfactual husbands would have been confident, ambitious men capable of really bringing home the bacon instead of emotionally scarred men too timid to reach for the stars. To be fair, the sentiments of their husbands are rather similar, making Japan seem like a country full of mismatched couples intent of making the other aware of their rather massive discontent. And then there are the children. We meet the child of an English teacher to readily admits to being ashamed of her father, a son who values alcohol over a well-fed family, and a young man who attacks a motherly co-worker for having the gull to tell him he was being used by his unscrupulous love interest. If true love is indeed present, it is in hibernation, no match for the lust with which society seems to be chasing its latest paramour, money.

In the beginning of the film, Seiichi returns home with news for his mother. In flashbacks, we see the family struggling in the bombed-out remains of what could be their home, finding food where they can and living day to day. These are actually the good ol’ days – at least they’re together. Back in the present, Saiichi informs his mother that he wishes to be adopted by an older wealthy couple who lost their only son in the war. He knows what this means for his mother; he just doesn’t care. Later, Haruko, alarmed by her son’s request, ask him to take her home, a request Seiichi rejects. As for Utaka, she appears to have developed an interest in her married English teacher, even as her mother pursues an arranged marriage for her, a pursuit that is met with persistent disinterest.

And the reason is horribly simple. War has broken the nation’s collective spirit. What united them, now divides them. Traditionalism is on the out, replaced by a desperate dash for individual destinies that mask a disgust for the past and a severe lack of empathy. Family members take advantage of relatives in need, and moral decisions made in desperation are used against people, even when the alternative was almost certainly starvation and death. There, but for the grace of God, go I has been replaced by If it didn’t happen to me, it didn’t have to happen to you. At one point, Haruko explains, “If a mother knows her children love her, she can go on living.” It is fitting then that Kinoshita ends the film with two characters proclaiming her to have been a good woman, and neither of them is related to her.

Tragedy of Japan is aptly titled, for what Kinoshita shows us is heartbreaking both on the macro and micro level. I admired how he was able to use Haruko’s story as a microcosm for society, and it is clear that he has sympathy for women whose only means of survival was to embrace sin. He saw clearly that what people do on the outside does not always reflect who they are on the inside. Yet he also knew that there are consequences to even the most well-meaning of actions. He saw the chain: War brings about devastation; devastation causes economic ruin; economic ruin begets tough decisions. And tough decisions do not always lead to admiration and understanding. His film is a cry for help. (on DVD in Region 3)

4 stars

*Tragedy of Japan is in Japanese and English with English subtitles. Alas, the subtitles are haphazardly constructed, with lines of dialogue frequently appearing on screen at the inappropriate time. Sometimes the dialogue disappears before you have had a chance to read it; occasionally it stays on the screen long after it has been said. Suffice to say, this is a film that demands a better release.

*Tragedy of Japan was voted the sixth best film of 1953 by Kinema Junpo Magazine.

Review - Morning for the Osone Family

June 1, 2017

Morning for the Osone Family – Japan, 1946

Call it his mea culpa; call it the unshackling of a director with a conscience. Whatever you call it, recognize this: Keisuke Kinoshita’s 1946 drama Morning for the Osone Family is every bit as blatantly propogandic as the work he produced during the war. The other difference is its target. While his other films aimed to convince or reaffirm audience members of Japan’s righteousness in going to war, Morning for the Osone Family takes the opposite view, and while this message may be easier for contemporary audiences to swallow, it in no way diminishes the heavy-handedness used to make its point.  

The film begins in 1943, and it opens with members of the Osone family and a few close friends singing “Silent Night” while a few people not singing discuss an article that one of them penned subtly questioning Japan’s motivation for going to war. It soon becomes clear that every one of them opposes the war, including a young, recently engaged man who is about the report for military duty. Towering over this group is a picture of the deceased patriarch of the family, a man we learn went out of his way to educate his children differently. In other words, in a time of war-mongering, he raised a family of pacifists. Soon the warmth of the evening is shattered. Authorities arrive to arrest the writer of the article, and a bugle, so often the sound of nationalism and pride, sounds to draw young men away from their families and closer to possible death.

In the hopes of assisting their detained family member, the family turns to their uncle, Issel (Eitaro Ozawa). It is a mistake, for he is as much a hawk as they are doves. Not only does he not help his nephew, but he cancels his niece’s engagement and chastises his sister-in-law Fusako (Haruko Sugimura) for weakening the Osone name with her anti-war sentiments. The uncle, you see, is a general in the army, and as such has much riding on the war’s success. As he himself explains, without victory, he faces the real possibility of being charged with war crimes.

Oddly enough, the uncle is the most interesting character in the film. In him, we see all of the evidence of what the other characters can only give speeches about. We see the euphoric high that war gives some people, and we see the blind pride that Kinoshita’s previous film Army articulated in loud, long-winded speeches expressed on the uncle’s rapturous face. In one scene, he practically dances when told his high-school aged nephew is being asked to enlist. He completely misses the fact that when an army recruits its children, it is a sign of desperation, not glory. His wife is a piece of work as well. Throughout the film, she seems more concerned with preserving her place in society than in the plight of her fellow countrymen, and many of her actions are simply draw-dropping.

I criticized Army for being too heavy-handed, for shouting its propaganda rather than subtly implying it. This was after all a departure from Kinoshita’s first three films, which seem to put story first. Army was practically an admission of the state of the war in 1944. It and other films like it were last ditch efforts to convince people that Japan could still win and that it was still honorable to send their sons off to almost certain death, and as such they tried too hard. The same can be said of Morning for the Osone Family. Coming so soon after Japan’s surrender and its occupation by the Allied Powers, (there’s even a reference to the benevolence of MacArthur Headquarters towards the end of the film) the film seems to be bending over backwards to convey the message that Japanese people were victims too and that it was the Japanese people themselves that wanted a demilitarized country. Perhaps that is why one of the film’s final scenes depicts Fusako finally telling off Issel and why the last thing we see him doing is eating lavishly while millions of ordinary Japanese citizens are starving.

I suspect these messages will be simpler to take for modern viewers. After all, it is harder to fault a movie for boisterously proclaiming something you already agree with than it is to find redeeming value in one that espouses contradictory views. Therefore, it goes without saying that it was easier to watch Morning for the Osone Family than either Army or The Living Magoroku. However, even that sentiment is deceiving, for what I would praise the film for is not its anti-war message, but its insight into those who had no choice but to passively wait for the war’s conclusions and those who had a vested interest in Japan’s victory, one that was matched – if not surpassed – by concerns for their own survival. These are moments that have the potential to expand our understanding of people and history, instead of just reinforcing pre-existing notions of historical good and evil. To me, they are part of what can make a film more than just entertainment. And it is in these moments that Morning for the Osone Family is a revelation. If only there were more of them. (on DVD as part of Eclipse’s Kinoshita and World War II)

3 stars

*Morning for the Osone Family is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Review - Army (1944)

May 18, 2017

Army – Japan, 1944

In Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, a recently married young woman is visited by two officials who inform her that her husband has been drafted. They then remark how proud she must be that her husband has a chance to fight and die for the Emperor. The camera cuts to a close-up of her, and her expression is not that of someone beaming with nationalistic pride. The implication here is crystal clear: Fighting in a war is not something to be celebrated. To get the opposite view, look no further than Keisuke Kinoshita’s 1944 film Army, the most blatant and unsettling piece of propaganda that he made during the war. In fact, watching it, I was left with only one interpretation: that the war was going horribly and support for it was waning. Why else would the powers-that-be feel the need to hammer home its messages so forcefully?

There are two persistent themes in Army, and each one is likely to be problematic for contemporary viewers. The film is, one the one hand, a historical justification for Japan’s war against both its neighbors and the United States. Starting in the late 1800s, the film takes viewers through approximately forty-five years of conflict. The film’s early scenes detail a series of military victories that did not lead to worldwide respect and glory. Instead of being recognized as a great military power, Japan is ganged up on, forced to give up territory, and excluded from the world community. Each humiliation builds up resentment, and promises of eventual revenge become increasingly common. In this part of the film, the Japanese army is spoken of in reverential terms, and practically every character worth anything has as his goal enlisting and fighting (and dying) for Japan’s honor. There is certainly some truth to the sentiments expressed in these moments. The problem comes in just how many of these scenes there are in the film.

The film’s second theme is much more disturbing. The film appears to be trying to speak directly to the parents of Japanese soldiers, both drafted and undrafted. And its message is this: The death of your sons is an honor, and you are selfish for putting your concerns about your sons’ well-being before the nation’s future. Perhaps to illustrate this, at one point in the film, a mother matter-of-factly proclaims that parents raise their children for the emperor and then hand them back to him to do with as he pleases.

Neither of these things are necessarily deal-breakers in a film. After all, many films have focused on characters whose values the audience may not share. However, by my count, Army contains a nationalistic message every five to ten minutes, and every other one is shouted by characters that see the slightest jest or skepticism as an act of betrayal. At one point, a character that the audience is seeing for the first time launches into a tirade after a soldier’s father seems “too concerned” with the well-being of his son, who is stationed where the harshest fighting is taking place. This character later apologizes, for what I’m not exactly sure.

The tragedy in all this is that the film’s heavy-handedness diminishes what the film does well, for at its core, Army is about a family’s quest to serve its country. The first part of the film jumps ahead in time too abruptly, and this prevents viewers from being able to invest or empathize with some of the characters, yet the movie’s point is well made. To people who lived in the trying times that immediately preceded and followed the turn of the century, nationalism did come first, and serving in the army likely was seen as an honor. Army could easily have followed this family as it looked for a way – any way really – to serve the nation. Unfortunately, we get too little introspection and far too much bombast and bravado.

No, let me rephrase that. It was not the bombast and bravado that most alienated me as I watched the film. It was the consistent barrage of a one-sided view that I fundamentally disagreed with and which I imagine much of Japan opposes today. The notion that a generation was expendable, that parents were weak for caring too much, and that past slights, however harsh, justify later atrocities is something so foreign to me that I felt somewhat livid – enraged at the characters for being so militaristic, frustrated at the screenwriter for hitting me over the head with supposed noble truths and false validations for aggression, and incensed at the director for not being able to reign it all in and show a view of wartime Japan that would be able to be watched in the years that followed the war. Instead, we get Army, a forgettable, infuriating mess of a film that will stand as a testament not to the human spirit during a brutal war, but to the influence of its war machine and the terrible messages it set out to spread. To buy into Army, you must believe that the purpose of life is to serve and die. Don’t believe me? Just listen to the song that plays towards the end of the movie. (on DVD as part of Eclipse’s Kinoshita and World War II box set)

2 stars

*Army is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Review - Jubilation Street

May 11, 2017

Jubilation Street – Japan, 1944

The opening credits of Keisuke Kinoshita’s Jubilation Street reference the date May 3, 1944, the date of the film’s completion, and this is somewhat significant, for it is less than one year before what came to be known as Japan’s “deadliest night,” a night during which 334 U.S. B-29s bombed Japan’s crowded neighborhoods mercilessly. The date provides an insight into the psyche of the films’ characters. To them, the war and its devastation still seem somewhat abstract. Sure, they know the war is going on and likely know people fighting in it, but their conversations are not the ones usually had by people personally impacted by war. The fact that they are being relocated is telling, though. The war is coming to Tokyo.

The film follows a group of neighborhood residents as they come to terms with the government’s decision to reclaim the land their families have lived on for decades. The implication is that the government needs it for military purposes, perhaps as a way of shoring up the city’s defenses. However, for much of the first thirty minutes, the war is barely talked about directly. Instead, residents focus on the changes such a move would mean for them personally. A few of them look forward to returning to farming. Others have concerns about where they are being sent, the impact of the move on their children’s education, and whether relocating will impact their children’s wedding prospects. Interestingly, no one talks about the impact of the war on the area they are moving to. It’s as if all of Japan is still a relatively pristine paradise. This is far from the truth.

The film gives us a glimpse into the lives of many of the area’s residents, and some of their storylines are indeed moving. I was particularly interested in the story involving a young pilot, the girl that loves him, and the obstacles standing in the way of their happiness, not all of which have to do with the war. In American films, such a storyline would be driven by raw emotion, the intensity of their love making them rush to the altar just hours before one of them ships out. In Jubilation Street, logic rules the day, and their conversation is replete with appeals for patience and sacrifice. I was also moved by a character who pines daily for the  husband who abandoned her and her son ten years earlier. Other plotlines, in particular one in which a young man tries to get his father-in-law to move in with him and his wife, are less successful. Simply put, too little time is devoted to these characters for their story to acquire the necessary amount of significance.

Eventually the reality of the war comes to the residents, and they respond just as you’d expect characters in a propaganda film to, with bombastic declarations and solemn oaths to do one’s best for the war effort. What is intended in these and other earlier moments is for the nationalistic spirit of the film’s character to resonate with audience members and inspire similar avowals of nationalistic sacrifice. This seems reasonable for a film of this sort.

Yet to the film’s detriment, it goes about doing this in the most blatantly obvious manner possible. Characters simply blurt things out instead of slowly building up to them, and people change on a dime instead of doing so after slow and deliberate consideration. In one scene, a young woman speaks to the man she loves in a way that makes her frustration and diminishing hopes absolutely clear. Before the man responds, he gently turns toward the camera and then becomes deathly serious. “Our country is at war,” he says and then proceeds to give her all of the reasons why the war effort must be given priority over their personal happiness. It is an inauthentic moment, one intended purely for the audience. The scene reminded me of a similar one in Yasujiro Ozu’s 1942 film, There Was a Father. In that one, a father chastises his son for suggesting that the two of them live together after years of being apart. Again, the message is made crystal clear: The country comes first.

Knowing the efforts of the Japanese government and people like the characters depicted in the film ultimately failed, something Kinoshita and writer Kaoro Morimoto could not have hinted at even if they had an inkling of what was to come, gives the film a sense of fatalism that it likely did not have when it was released in 1944. The area these characters live in will eventual be reduced to ruble, and hundreds of thousands of lives will be lost. Furthermore, the airplanes that the film seems so enamored with will soon be wasted in kamikaze missions. Jubilation Street therefore captures a moment in time when this horror was thought to be preventable, when victory was deemed attainable if only people rolled up their sleeves and gave even more of themselves.

I wish I could say I liked it more, but the film is ultimately too unfocused, its propaganda so blatant that it strains credibility. Sure, there are individual moments to cherish, moments in which Kinoshita’s skills as a director shine through. I particularly liked the way his unobtrusive use of the camera made it feel as if the audience was a fly on a wall, and I frequently marveled at his use of long shots and close ups, especially ones of faces expressing both troubled and jovial emotions. The performances in the film are also generally strong. Ken Uehara and Mitsuko Mito are impressive as Shingo and Takako, the film’s ill-fated couple. I was also moved by the work of Chiyo Nobu, who plays Shingo’s mother. Her character is the most complicated and requires an actress who can express a range of emotions non-verbally. She nails pretty much every moment.

However, with the exception of a few of the film’s more poignant moments, I never felt genuinely invested in the film, and even the film’s most powerful moments hold viewers at a distance. It is true that some of this may have been intentional, a way of accentuating the awakening that occurs in the film’s closing moments. Yet a powerful ending should make what came before it more significant. Here, it just highlights the film’s overall unevenness. Creatively constrained as he no doubt was, with Jubilation Street, Kinoshita crafted a film that is certainly watchable, yet it is also one of his most forgettable, a good idea undone by the times and only slightly redeemed by 20-20 vision. (on DVD as part of Eclipse’s Kinoshita and World War II)

2 and a half stars

*Jubilation Street is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Review - The Living Magoroku

April 27, 2017

The Living Magoroku – Japan, 1943

In effective propaganda films, the propaganda operates something like a drone. It flies at a height that ensures that is it never entirely undetected, hovers around for a while, and then makes its full purpose known. And it does all of this in a manner than never distracts or cheapens the central narrative. In fact, when it finally trumpets its nationalistic message, the message seems entirely logical, the reasonable conclusion of a character’s personal journey. Keisuke Kinoshita’s first movie, Port of Flowers, did this reasonable well. The same cannot be said for his sophomore effort, The Living Magoroku.

The Living Magoroku begins interestingly enough, for in its opening moments it transports viewers back to a 1573 conflict between two warring factions. The conflict doesn’t end well for either side. Fast forward more than three hundred years, and the descendants of these warriors are now being trained for eventual assignment in the Second World War. There’s only one problem: they’ve gone soft. As their squad commander puts it, they’ve lost their ancestral spirit. The soldiers are chastised for their shallow understanding of their ancestry, told to plea to their ancestors for courage, and urged to become educated in their family roots. Then comes the kicker. The commander closes with the following “words of encouragement,” “Don’t cling to life. When you die, die honorably.” In 1943, the message to the audience would have been unmistakable.

The film is set on a Japanese island dominated by the Onagi family. The family has so much power that even marriages go through them, much like they did in lands ruled by kings or despots long ago. The family controls the 75-acre piece of land that was the scene of the battle depicted in the film’s opening scene, and for superstitious reasons, they have never allowed it to be farmed on. This is presented as hindering the war effort, and more than a few conversations are centered upon just how much food could be grown on the land. Additional layers of conflict are added through a rare and valuable sword that the family owns (and that another character wants) and the problematic health of the family’s elder son, who is convinced that he, like all of the other men in his family, is destined to die a premature death.

Thus, the film’s central conflict could not be clearer. It is a variation of that age-old theme of modernity versus tradition, one curiously set at a time when children were still being taught that their emperor had divine origins, a contradiction that the film obviously does not address. Nor did I expect it to. What I did expect, however, was for the film to build to a logical and deserved conclusion. After all, it’s never a mystery how the film will end. Government rules mandated that movies promote farming, manufacturing, hard work, and sacrifice, and a family clinging to superstition and self-preservation just doesn’t gel with that message. However, after spending a good hour and twenty minutes creating an atmosphere of slight tension, the film whimpers to the finishing line, electing to have a Deus ex machina character deliver a stirring speech that sets things right. (One guess who the character is.) Just like that, anxieties are gone, a weak character is strong, a strong character is subservient, self-centeredness gives way to charity, and superstition is suddenly powerless. It’s simply too much too soon.

And this is a shame, for the film mostly works up until that point. Sure, it is heavy handed at times. It is also slightly condescending of the island’s youth, its message about young women is somewhat problematic, and several of its storylines remain undeveloped. However, when it focused on the conflicts between the old and the new, and on the lasting effects of superstition, I felt the film had something worthwhile to say – at least, until it didn’t anymore. It is as if Kinoshita, who also wrote the screenplay, reached the 80-minute mark and suddenly remembered that he’d promised the studio a 90-minute feature. The last ten minutes are truly the worst part of the film, not because the film ends with such an overtly nationalistic message, but because what it has a key character do is utterly uncharacteristic. It resembles the actions of a director who simply threw in the towel, and maybe this is indeed what happened. In a way, the film ends exactly the way it has to. I get that. However, I’ve seen enough films like this one to know they can be done well. They can be subtle, logical, and moving. The Living Magoroku only succeeded in the latter, and by the time the credits finished rolling, even that sentiment had been exhausted. (on DVD as part of Eclipse’s Kinoshita and World War II box set)

2 and a half stars

*The Living Magoroku is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Review - Port of Flowers

April 13, 2017

Port of Flowers – Japan, 1943

I suspect that the more time goes by, the more people will be able to appreciate – and perhaps marvel at – Keisuke Kinoshita’s directorial debut Port of Flowers. I say this because the film has the unfortunate distinction of having been made in 1943, two years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an event actually referenced in the film, and two year before Japan’s surrender. In other words, it is unabashedly nationalistic. Two of its supporting characters even get into a shouting match over whether one of them is sufficiently Japanese. Just what was the accused’s blunder? Wondering aloud how much money a ship-making company could lose in during wartime. Only when he recognizes the need to put the country ahead of his personal wealth is he deemed to be sufficiently patriotic. The conversation is heavy handed to be sure, but it is also entirely realistic in its sentiments. In fact, I’m willing to bet that similar conversations were had on the other side of the Pacific.

By now, the plot of Port of Flowers will appear rather familiar to viewers because in the last fifty years, it has become a bit of a cliché. It was less of one back in 1943. In the beginning of the film, two con men descend upon a rather quaint port town. They arrive claiming to be the sons of a businessman who died before completing his dream of establishing a shipping company, and they woo the area’s residents with their altruistic proclamations of wanting the company to be 100 per cent resident-owned. All they want, they assert, is to make their father’s dream come true. The residents fall for it hook, line, and sinker. However, it isn’t hard to predict that at least one of these two will have a change of heart.

One of the things that makes Port of Flowers unique – and therefore a likely target for censure under Douglas MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan immediately following the cessation of hostilities – is its use of the Second World War. The film was made in 1943, at a time when it is impossible to imagine any movie being made other than one functioning at least partially as a nationalistic tribute to those taking part in the war effort. Even the great Akira Kurosawa made one these films. In his film, Most Beautiful, about a woman who sacrifices her health working in a weapons factory, an individual’s physical well-being is portrayed as less important than the Japanese armies need for artillery. In Port of Flowers, it is one’s wealth that must be sacrificed for the betterment of the military. It isn’t hard to imagine American viewers watching such films in the 1950's and seething.

However, if you think about it, everything we see in the film makes complete sense. The residents’ complete acceptance of the visitors, their buy-in of their plan, and the speed and veracity of the shift from the residents’ personal motivations and their euphoric support for the war. But look carefully. The residents know nothing of the war other than what they hear in the government’s bare-bone announcements of victorious attacks and tightly-coordinated tugs at the nation’s collective patriotic heartstrings. There is no mention of cost or loss of life, no awareness of the attack having been carried out before the Emperor’s declaration of war. I suspect that all people at this time knew was that the United States had stopped supplying oil to Japan in 1940, an action many interpreted as proof that the United States was no longer impartial. And interestingly, there’s a moment in the film when the full horrors of the war become clear. In it, the residents of the town run aimlessly across a barren field in anger and shock that death has come to one of their own. Where are they going? I’m not even sure they know. What seems clear, though, is that the war has hit home for them, and it would get much worse.

Having said all of this, I feel I’ve done the film a bit of a disservice, for in explaining my esteem for it, I have focused too much on the film’s politics, and there is much more to the film that this. There is the beautiful way in which people open their hearts to the con men, and the incredible personal journeys that the these men embark on to reach their personal destinations. I admired the complexity of the villagers, how each of them had a motive for their actions and how hard it was to fault any of them for their actions. Screenwriter Yoshiro Tsuji even had the wherewithal and the guts to introduce a new character halfway through the film and to have this character play an extremely pivotal role in the film. You’ll know the scene when you see it – it’s just that powerful.

Back when Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima was released, I remember reading a review that ended with the acknowledgement that it was rare to see war from the perspective of the other side, but that perhaps we should see more of them. I wholeheartedly agree. For me, Port of Flowers was both enjoyable and educational. In it, we see a new view of a familiar conflict. More importantly, however, we see a story that we can relate to, a story of faith in humanity, of change, and of redemption. The politics is there, of course, but so too is heart and decency, and I believe we can admire and learn something from that, while still disagreeing with the actions of an unseen government. (on DVD as part of Eclipse’s Kinoshita and World War II)

3 and a half stars

*Port of Flowers is in Japanese with English subtitles.

Review – Twenty-Four Eyes

February 10, 2008

Twenty-Four Eyes – Japan, 1954

It's hard for me to put into words my esteem for Twenty-Four Eyes. Doing so is like looking at one of Da Vinci's masterpieces and attempting to explain how you feel; words may simply never do it justice. As I watched it, thousands of pictures flashed into my head. I recalled the scene in Akira Kurosawa's Madadayo in which the teacher looks out at the people in front of him and sees his students' grandchildren paying homage to the their grandparents' mentor. I remember the innocence of Anna in Nikita Mikhalkov's documentary Anna, which documented his daughter's metamorphosis from innocent child to indoctrinated teenager during the 1980s. Images of the students in All Quiet on the Western Front ripping up their textbooks came into my head. I recalled the personal dedication of teachers such as Dionna Encarnacion, a public school teacher in San Francisco, who taught the same group of students for five years and devoted years of her life to trying to ensure that they would succeed academically. If those seem like an odd collection of images - respect, loss of innocence, nationalism, and commitment - that only shows the range of the film that conjured them up.

Twenty-Four Eyes­ is the story of Hisaki Oishi (played perfectly by Hideko Takamine), a first-year teacher on the Japanese island of Shodoshima in 1928. To say that she is unlike others teachers, or for that matters other residents of the island, would be an understatement. While the women of the island wear traditional clothes and walk everywhere, Oishi wears a suit and rides a bicycle. To the adults of the island, Oishi is dressing like a man and flaunting her wealth. They further disapprove of the way she refers to children by their nicknames. It makes no difference to them that their children prefer these names to their given names.

The island of Shodoshima is inhabited by mostly farmers and merchants, and many of them are impoverished. Oishi's students walk themselves to class and work after school; many of them are being groomed to take over or work in the family business. Into this world steps Oishi, a woman whose own background has taught her that education should be had by everyone and that having and following your dreams is essential. Oishi's twelve students take to her so well that when she tears a tendon, they decide to walk to see her, not realizing that she lives clear on the other side of the island. Five years pass, and at the beginning of what should be the student' sixth grade, politics and poverty are beginning to take their toll of the island's inhabitants. A teacher is accused of being a communist, and Matsue, one of Oishi's students, is forced to drop out of school after her mother dies. Later that year, while writing a paper on their hopes for the future, Fujiko, another student, breaks down in tears. It is impossible for her to have hope for the future, as her family's house has just been sold and she may have to move. That same year another student will drop out, citing her mother's need for her to cook at home; in addition, her male students begin to talk about their interest in joining the army - this as World War II is just around the corner.

Twenty-Four Eyes is about more than just the impact that a teacher has on her students. It is also about change. At the beginning of the film, each of Oishi's students exhibits the attributes of children everywhere; they are naïve, playful, and inquisitive; some are shyer than others, some leaders, some followers. The audience gets to know each of these students and hopes along with Oishi that they can achieve if not greatness at least a sense of personal fulfillment. As it becomes clear that that will not happen for all of them, the audience sympathizes with their plights and understands Oishi's growing disillusionment with a system that she cannot change. Film critic Tadao Sato once wrote that Twenty-Four Eyes has "wrung more tears out of Japanese audiences than any other post-war film." Watching it, it is easy to see why.

Twenty-Four Eyes takes place during a time when the idea of getting a balanced education clashed with both the patriotic fervor sweeping through Japan and common beliefs, be they born out of financial necessity or tradition. As a consequence, young girls will take menial jobs to help their parents out financially, and young boys will go off to fight a war they are taught it is honorable to die in. Very few of them will end up in the career that they had wanted for themselves, and the reasons for this will have nothing to do with their own personal shortcomings. As Oishi stands in front of the next generation of students at the end of the film, she can only hope that the future is brighter for these twenty-four eyes than it was for their predecessors. (on DVD from Criterion Collection)

Four and a half stars

*Twenty-Four Eyes is in Japanese with English subtitles.

*Twenty-Four Eyes beat out The Seven Samurai for Best Picture of the Year at the Kinema Junpo (Japan's Oscars) in 1955.