new "youth film'?

Michael Kerpan mekerpan at verizon.net
Thu Apr 24 17:25:48 EDT 2008


I think Strawberry Shortcakes is probably too
emotionally violent for this category.

It is possible that these films have a partial genesis
in the animated work of Studio Ghibli.  Kondo's
Whisper of the Heart (1995) has a lot of the elements
of this category. So did Mochizuki's "Ocean Waves"
(1993).

So far as I can tell, however, the first film of this
sort was actually Naruse's (totally unknown) "Haru no
mezame" (1947).  It has exactly the same sort of tone
and pacing one finds in these more recent films --
simply recounting the ordinary vicissitudes of high
school life (largely from the perspective of a young
girl, played nvy Yoshiko Kuga, in her first starring
role).

Shimizu's Nobuko (1940) was a sort of pre-decessor --
it focused on a novice teacher at a rural girl's
boarding high school and her most difficult student. 
but it was not as child-centered as Naruse's later
film.

MEK
Boston

--- Rob Smith <robixsmash at gmail.com> wrote:

> I don't know if Yaguchi invented it, or reinvented
> it. Shunji Iwai has films
> from earlier that have a similar, though less
> comedic, take. Fireworks
> (1993) and April Story (1998), for instance, even
> Love Letter (1995) and
> Ghost Soup (1992) to an extent. Not to say Iwai did
> either, but these all
> predate Waterboys and Take Care of My Cat.
> 
> There are also Hana and Alice, Strawberry
> Shortcakes, Gomen, A Day on the
> Planet, The Graduates, Honey and Clover, Crying Out
> Love in the Center of
> the Universe, and something like Install might fit
> into this sub-genre, too.
> 
> 
> It's a spreading genre feel, too. I've noticed a few
> films from Taiwan
> lately that if I didn't know they were from Taiwan,
> I would have thought
> they were Japanese youth films (Summer's Tail,
> Eternal Summer, etc).
> 



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