JAPANESE FILMS

Botanical Puzzle

This is part two of “Films of 1949” series. (Part 1 is here) “Crape Myrtle always brings bad luck.” Until I saw Kurosawa’s “Stray Dog”, I had never heard of Crape Myrtle being the omen of bad luck. This line occurs as a part of the audio montage during the pivotal scene in the film. A woman was brutally murdered in a quiet house in upper-class neighborhood. Her husband, a well-to-do businessman, Nakamura, had been away on a business trip, The Police was working on fingerprints and other clues in the murder scene, ransacked by the murderer. They knew instinctively …

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JAPANESE FILMS

Echoes

This is the first part of “Films of 1949” series. My father was only seven or eight years old when this incident took place. It was the year 1946, several months after the surrender of Japan. The nation was in shambles, people were scared of “invaders”, brutal enemies they had learned to hate. They didn’t know what to expect, or rather what to fear, but, little by little, they started to see the reality of unconditional surrender. Almost everyday, military planes flew over the town to somewhere north. They were not B-29s anymore. They were cargo planes. Over the strangely …

 
JAPANESE FILMS

100 Million Idiots

Mondrian-like composition in “Ohayo (1959)” Over the cups of sake, Chishu Ryu and others in the Izakaya murmur “TV creates 100 million idiots”. Yes, TV will blow their intellect out of all Japanese brains. Somebody said that. Ozu’s “Ohayo” was released in 1959. TV culture was still at its early stage and everything was experimental and new. Its technology was cutting edge of the time, and this box was the object of industrial accomplishment. However, the virtual world it offered was prime example of dysfunctional contemporary world. “TV creates 100 million idiots” was a buzzword in late 50’s. Souichi Otake, …