Shimizu's Arigato-san

[Alexander Jacoby]

As I recall - it's some time since I've seen it, but my notes are supplementing my memory - in the last scene what happens the other, more self-assured girl goes up to the driver and tells him that if he didn't spend the money he had intended to use to buy either a new bus or a new car or some other luxury (the exact thing he intended to buy is the bit my notes don't record), he would be able instead to use it to marry the girl and so she wouldn't have to go to Tokyo and be a prostitute. He seems to respond favourably to this suggestion. It's left kind of ambiguous as we don't see him propose to her or anything, but definitely the film ends with the audience assuming that he is going to marry her and thus save her from the fate of prostitution.
   
  Shimizu's endings often seemed to place faith in the potential of small charitable actions to improve the lot of individuals and thus to contribute on a small level to the improvement of society. This is one example; the way that several of the orphans in Children of the Great Buddha are spontaneously adopted by concerned adults is another, and the children's home in Children of the Beehive provides hope for at least a few of the hopeless.
   
  ALEX
   

       
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