<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">I totally agree with film being an invocation of a near past.It made me think that many Japanese viewers express feeling a sense of nostalgia on seeing the boss drinking "ramune",<div>He does so quite freely,again so perfectly evocative of a true Japanese summer,pouring it on ice.</div><div>However,one can consider that such a drink would have been somehow scarce during war time and indeed searching some ramune history,during the Sino-Japanese war of 1937 production fell drastically due to the lack of sugar,aromatic ingredients and carbonic gas.</div><div>In 1941,a great number of people working in ramune factories were drafted,production fell and many factories were destroyed.By the end of the war,there were only 468 factories left,producing just a mere 1% compared to production figures in Taisho year 15.</div><div><div>It seems very unrealistic that in such a
remote-looking area as appears in the film,this drink is so easy to buy,even for the boss.</div><div><br></div><div><br>--- On <b>Tue, 1/3/11, Maria Jose Gonzalez <i><tkarsavina@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Maria Jose Gonzalez <tkarsavina@yahoo.com><br>Subject: Re: Spring Awakens (was: Hideko the Bus Conductor)<br>To: KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>Date: Tuesday, 1 March, 2011, 1:44 AM<br><br><div id="yiv276148528"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font:inherit;">Just months before that same year,another "bus" film by Hiroshi Shimizu,"Akatsuki no Gassho" had been released and Naruse was of course very much aware of the comparisons that would arise.<br>This film deals with yet another conductress and again contains no traces of a country at war (apparently it was filmed in Akita
Prefecture which suggests films were moving away from the capital area to avoid it).<div><br></div><div>Maria-Jose</div><div><br></div><div><br>--- On <b>Tue, 1/3/11, Michael Kerpan <i><mekerpan@verizon.net></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255);margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px;"><br>From: Michael Kerpan <mekerpan@verizon.net><br>Subject: Spring Awakens (was: Hideko the Bus Conductor)<br>To: "KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu" <KineJapan@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu><br>Date: Tuesday, 1
March, 2011, 1:12 AM<br><br><div id="yiv276148528"><div style="color:#000;font-size:12pt;"><div style=""><span style="">> This has the feel of a story of the near past, only pretending to be in the present.</span></div>
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<div style=""><span style="">This is true of one Naruse's early post-war films. I get a feeling that this could as easily have been set around 1930 as around the latter 1940s. (This is another of my top 1940s Naruse films). ;~}<var id="yiv276148528yui-ie-cursor"></var></span></div></div></div></blockquote></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br></div></blockquote></div></div></td></tr></table><br>