Hideko the Bus Conductor

[Roger Macy]

Dear Kinejapaners,

I wonder if some of you could help me understand a few things about Naruse's 1941 film, Hideko  no sasho-san .  Actually, the reason I had ferreted out a copy of this film was something I came across in Asia magazine ('the journal of the American Asiatic Society') for August 1940 by Stafford Cripps (p399-401). [He was a Labour ex-minister, would soon be appointed by Churchill as ambassador to Moscow and was later Chancellor of the Exchequer.  He had just visited China and Japan] :-

"The lack of gasoline supplies was obvious in the buses converted to use water-gas and the almost complete absence of private cars on the streets.  While I was in Tokyo a committee of the Diet was discussing the breakdown of rural bus transport and the appropriate Minister solemnly explained to them that this was really a blessing in disguise, since the Japanese were tending to become lazy and it would do them good to walk instead of travelling in buses !"

It made me wonder whether the Takamine/ Naruse film, made immediately after this, was quite the innocent rural idyll that I had read about.  It certainly didn't matter for my Takamine obit. for The Independent, which was long filed - it appeared this week, tinkered, and all eleven words about her war-time filmography were cut. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hideko-takamine-japanese-actress-whose-film-career-spanned-half-a-century-2221668.html  So this is just for anyone who's interested.

In this deeply rural location, there's a shortage of passengers but not of fuel.  Neither bus that we see, has been converted, and one bus overtakes its rival to get to the customers first.  No-one, except the industrious Deko-chan has to walk anywhere.  But is this supposed to be in the now?   Unless Cripps and the Transport Minister made it all up, isn't this referring to a 'then'?  I think the script carefully hedges its bets here - although if anyone could unpack this sentence of Audie Bock (undated Film Center 'Naruse' Catalog), I'd appreciate it: "The story is of course largely autobiographical on the part of Ibuse" [Ibuse Masuji].  I presume she means the part of the writer, Ikawa, in the story.  But had Ibuse already published this story ?

Catherine Russell is helpful and insightful as ever, particularly about Takamine's persona in the closing shots.  But Catherine reads the film's end, as others do, as "Okoma and Sonoda have triumphed over their indolent, corrupt boss to save the company".  I thought - but the disc I obtained is terrible, so I would be happy to be corrected - that we had just previously cut back to the office and learnt that the boss had sold the bus, sacked the staff and was closing the office tomorrow.   We could hope that the new owner might judge that Deko-chan had more mileage in her than that bone-shaker of a bus and include her in the deal, but we shouldn't count on it.  Which would make the pure optimism of the closing shot not only poignant  but religious, a point that Catherine observes about these wartime films a little earlier.

And my final question - In the scene just before this, Deko-chan is teasing her driver-colleague, that the departed writer, Ikawa, had likened him to a 'ninjin' in a French film.  One could argue that reference to a French film in late 1941 was also referring back to a previous period.  But what French film is this with a carrot - oriental or occidental ?

 

Any suggestions or corrections appreciated,

Roger
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