emigration in Japanese Girls at the Harbor

[Roger Macy]

Thanks, Alex,
And I now notice, on p19 of the 1991 Yamagata IDFF catalogue, 'Media Wars' (and thus, also presumably in 'Japan/America Film Wars'), Shimizu Akira says that Yokohama Cinema's The Southern Cross Beckons, Minami jujisei wa maneku (1938) was 'intended to promote Japanese immigration, and introduced the natural scenery of various South American countries'.  That's very much beyond the Japanese empire and decidedly later than Minato no nihon musume, so I stand well and truly corrected.
Roger
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Alexander Jacoby 
  To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 1:40 AM
  Subject: Re: emigration in Japanese Girls at the Harbor


        Emigration features in quite a few of Japanese silent films as a positive conclusion or at least as a potential solution to problems. Shimizu's Eternal Pearl (Fue no shiratama, 1929) is another example, and I've seen others, though I'd have to check my records to name them.

        In the mid- to late- thirties, emigration is still presented as a solution to problems, but by then, the destination is Korea or Manchuria. See for instance Shimazu's An Older Brother and Her Younger Sister (Ani to sono imoto, 1939), with its ending at the airport. Grass gets caught in the wheel as the plane takes off, and the last line is "That grass will grow in China."

        ALEX





        --- On Wed, 8/4/09, Roger Macy <macyroger at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:


          From: Roger Macy <macyroger at yahoo.co.uk>
          Subject: emigration in Japanese Girls at the Harbor
          To: "KineJapan" <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
          Date: Wednesday, 8 April, 2009, 1:20 AM


           
          Dear KineJapaners,
          If anyone cares to suggest answers to some questions on Japanese Girls at the Harbor, I would much appreciate it.  It would be nice to think that Keiko McDonald's promised book on Shimizu has a midwife somewhere, but in the meantime a viewing has aroused my curiosity.  One advantage of a boxed set of a director's films is that you can spread their viewing out, rather than keep within the short concentration of a cinethecque convoy.

          I got round to watching Shimizu's Minato no nihon musume last night which was more than up to expectation.   What surprised me at the end was how Shimizu could show emigration as a positive and morally redeeming conclusion to his story in 1933.  Although Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, in her Nippon Modern, says just that Sunako disappears in the end; William Drew, in his Midnight Eye piece, says that 'Sunako ultimately takes charge of her destiny by going abroad with her artist-paramour in search of a new life' - a reading with which I concur.
          Although the dialogue (and perhaps the script submitted to the censors?)  does not mention emigration, the direction of the ship out of Yokohama, and the opening sequence, of the Canadian Pacific gangplank onto the 'Empress of Russia' seems to leave little doubt.  I went back and checked the beginning to see if it was a revealed flash-back - it's not - but this did remind me that I had tried to adjust my set when the opening pan seemed to have the bottom cut off, leaving ships and foreground apparently unsupported by water or quayside.  But the contrast to the closing pan, showing the flotsam and jetsam left behind in Japan has to be deliberate.  The paintings of Sunako, in her old-world guise as a bar hostess/prostitute, which she asks her partner to jettison from the ship, mysteriously do not fade or wash away, but remain in full appearance, clinging to the Japan shore, whilst the redeemed couple sail away.

          Has emigration in Japanese cinema (beyond the Japanese empire) been discussed or observed previously ?

          Are there other such filmic examples of emigration  portrayed in a positive light ?

          Can anyone suggest likely western movies of the time that inspired the story ?  Two couples who have no family seems very Hollywood. (The writer of the original story, 北林透馬, isn't in WINE - still looking for suitable directories.).

          Would a silent film in 1933 be suitable for an émigré market ?

          Roger 

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