Undiscovered Post-war Japan
A Japanese Film Festival
Tuesday 4th to Friday 7th September 2012
The Gilmorehill Centre, University of Glasgow,
9 University Avenue, Glasgow G12
Admission is free and open to the public.
This festival is organised by Film & Television Studies, School of Culture and
Creative Studies, University of Glasgow, in collaboration with Japan Desk
Scotland. It is supported by the Japan Foundation and the Great Britain
Sasakawa Foundation.
Schedule
Tuesday 4 September
2.30pm Children of Hiroshima (Kaneto Shindo, 1952) 100 min
5.30pm I live in Fear (Kurosawa Akira, 1955) 103min
Wednesday 5 September
2.30pm Construction Record of Sakuma Dam: Part 1 (Hanabusa, 1955)
45 min
5.30pm Godzilla (Honda Ishiro, 1954) 93 min
Thursday 6 September
2.30pm On the Road: A Document (Tsuchimoto Noriaki, 1964) 42 min
5.30pm Tokyo Story (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953) 135 min
Friday 7 September
2.30pm Minamata: The Victims and their World (Tsuchimoto Noriaki, 1971)
120 min
5.30 Fugitive from the Past (Uchida Tomu, 1964) 183 min
All films in Japanese with English subtitles except Sakuma Dam
The British public and academic scholars are familiar with some of the major
works of Japanese films such as Tokyo Story released in 1953 (considered in the
UK as one of the best films ever made) and the popular series of Godzilla films,
the first of which was released in 1954. This festival is designed to make sense
of these films in the context of other films, such as post-war Japanese
documentary films and in relation to Japan’s historical context. For example, the
two films to be screened in this festival, Godzilla and Kurosawa’s less-known film,
I Live in Fear, are said to be inspired by the same incident. A series of Hydrogen
Bomb Test that were carried out on Bikini Athol in the Pacific Ocean from 1946 to
1958 and in March 1954 crews on a Japanese fishing boat suffered from
radiation with one dying later. This not only triggered the first nation-wide
campaign against nuclear weapons in Japan but can also be understood as the
inspiration for these two films.
Tuesday 4 September
Children of Hiroshima (Kaneto Shindo, 1952) 100 min
During post-war occupation of Japan by the Allied Powers strict censorship was imposed and no
public discussion of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was allowed. In 1952 when the
occupation was over, Hiroshima-born Shindo (1912-2012) made, whose original Japanese title,
Genbaku no Ko, may be translated as ‘Children of the Atomic Bomb’. Inspired by an anthology
of Hiroshima children’s recollections of their experiences, the film follows a journey of a female
school teacher, a survivor herself, who visits Hiroshima for the first time since the end of the war.
This is a fictional film, but as it was shot mostly in Hiroshima, it recorded the still visible legacy
of the bomb. Music was written by Ifukube Akira (1914-2006), who also composed music for
Godzilla.
I live in Fear (Kurosawa Akira, 1955) 103min
This may be one of the less-known films of Kurosawa (1910-1998). An elderly self-made owner
of a foundry (played by then 35-year-old Mifune Toshiro) is afraid of being contaminated and
killed by radiation, following the death of a fishing boat crew member from it, and is convinced
that the only safe place on earth is South America. He plans to emigrate to Brazil with his family.
Other members of the family, however, make a case to the Family Court, asking that the father is
declared mentally incompetent. If they succeed, the father would not be allowed to finance the
planned emigration and the family members would continue the comfortable life that they are
enjoying. To stay or not to stay is the question that tears the family apart. I live in fear can be seen
as following the thematic and narrative concerns of Ozu’s celebrated Tokyo Story but with the
central figure of the father defined as a very different character.
Wednesday 5 September
Construction Record of Sakuma Dam: Part 1 (Hanabusa, 1955) 45 min
The Sakuma Dam is a hydroelectric dam on Tenryu River which is famous for its rapid stream
that runs through narrow valleys. The dam was hastily constructed between 1953 and 1956, with
3.5 million workers employed in total, a testimony to the importance that energy has for Japan, a
country with no oil resources. It should be noted that while this dam was being constructed, the
development of nuclear power plants was also discussed by Japanese politicians. This
documentary film was commissioned by the dam’s main constructer, recording the first stage of
its development. At the very early stages works relied heavily on human labour to create new
roads and bridges so that the heavy equipment and machinery (such as cranes and diggers) can be
transported to the site. This required blasting which radically altered the landscape of the valleys
in the process of creating the150-metre-high and 290-metre long dam.
Godzilla (Honda Ishiro, 1954) 93 min
The monster Godzilla, gojira in Japanese, a word that combines gorilla and kujira (whale), is
introduced in this celebrated film directed by Honda (1911-1993) as a possible surviving Jurassic
dinosaur which has lived at the bottom of the sea for centuries but has lost its peaceful living
environment due to the repeated H-Bomb tests carried out in the Pacific Ocean. It is referred to by
a scholar of prehistoric life in the film as a living creature which has survived radiation. At the
time of its first release, such portrayal may have brought back to the memory of members of the
audience the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the tests at Bikini Athol and the related
incidents. Equally probable is that Godzilla’s sustained and spectacular attack on Tokyo from the
sea could be associated with the extensive destructive bombings of Tokyo and other major cities
in March 1945. This film could not have been made without special effects, which were provided
by the legendary Tsuburaya Eiji (1901-1970).
Thursday 6 September
On the Road: A Document (Tsuchimoto Noriaki, 1964) 42 min
The Tokyo of 1963 is documented in this film by Tsuchimoto (1928-2008), who started his career
with Iwanami Films by focusing on the work and life of a taxi driver. The camera follows the taxi
as it navigates through roads congested with lots of trucks but only a limited number of privatelyowned cars as he narrowly escapes a collision with a lorry, gets fined for speeding, bypasses a
half-finished motorway (motorways and bullet trains came to existence with the 1964 Tokyo
Olympics) and moves slowly among pedestrians spreading across the road in residential areas.
The film also captures quiet roads in the early morning, Tsuchimoto’s young family, as well as a
map of Tokyo with pins indicating the sites of traffic accidents. The film was originally
commissioned by the Metropolitan Police to highlight road safety policy, but Tsuchimoto
portrays the experience of the road and driving through the points of view of drivers and
pedestrians.
Tokyo Story (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953) 135 min
There is abundant critical recognition and extensive academic scholarship bot on Ozu (19031963) and his Tokyo Story widely recognised as one of the best films ever made. Nevertheless, his
films stimulate speculation regarding aesthetic and thematic trends of his films. Why is it that his
films have similar story lines? This film follows a journey of an elderly couple from their home in
Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, to Tokyo to see their grown-up children, but similar story lines
were used in his other films, such as the 1936 The Only Son. Why did he use the characteristic
low-angle shots? Why did he not pan his camera? Why did he carefully position actors in relation
to others and the background, especially their postures and eyes?
Friday 7 September
Minamata: The Victims and their World (Tsuchimoto Noriaki, 1971) 120 min
Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu, the southern island, faces the Shiranui Sea. A large
industrial complex in the city produced nitrogen fertilizers (the Shin Nihon Chisso Fertilizer),
with inorganic mercury compounds as catalyst used in the process. A disease, later known as
‘Minamata Disease’, began to appear in the 1950s that caused severe intoxication of the central
neuron system attributed to methyl mercury compounds in fish and selfish. Tsuchimoto
documents the victims’ life and their struggle against the factory which refused to accept
responsibility, against the government which was slow to react and against the wide-spread
prejudices that excluded them from society. The victims and their supporters used a traditional
banner with a single Japanese word, en/urami, or grudge.
Fugitive from the Past (Uchida Tomu, 1964) 183 min
The film starts in 1947 in the Tsugaru Straits between Hokkaido, the northern island, and Honshu,
the main island, when two seemingly unrelated incidents happened: a murder, robbery and arson
of a pawnshop in Hokkaido; and a shipwreck of a ferry connecting the two islands due to a
typhoon. A detective (Ban Junzaburo) thought that those involved in the pawnshop incident had
escaped to the main island during busy rescue operations for the shipwreck victims. Uchida
(1898-1970) follows the detective’s chase of one of the suspects (Mikuni Rentaro) exploring the
characters of Mikuni and of a prostitute who helps and is helped by him. This is not a detective
story but a story of a detective and those escaping from the past. The Japanese original title, Kiga
Kaikyo, may be translated as ‘Hunger Straits’. Takakura Ken appears as a detective interrogating
Mikuni.