[KineJapan] The Beginning of the Road

[Cook, Theodore]

Roger,

FANTASTIC!  Haruko Taya Cook and I interviewed Kinoshita Keishke about those war- and immediate postwar-years. The interview could not be squeezed into JAPAN AT WAR: AN ORAL HISTORY but informs our next project.
 I would welcome any news on the Hara Keichi film!

Ted Cook
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 10, 2014, at 12:08 PM, "Roger Macy" <macyroger at yahoo.co.uk<mailto:macyroger at yahoo.co.uk>> wrote:

Dear KineJapaners,
‘The Keisuke Kinoshita Story’
Quentin Turnour mentioned at the end of his post on the KineJun Best ten 2013, on the 9th, that
      (Just as last year the hard to see film was the #2 THE DRUDGERY TRAIN and the #1 - Yang Yong-hi's brilliant    OUR HOMELAND - was only finally seen on the back of a JAL airline seat)
Our Homeland, together with Yang Yong-hi, at least made it to Frankfurt and a few other places but, I agree, not enough.
But your comment, Quentin, did make me pay more attention to the back of my American Airlines seat and what was listed under ‘Japanese’.
Of the fifty, most were middling Hollywood (presumably available with Japanese language).
The eight Japanese films among them (listed below) were, in my opinion, mostly uninspiring with several low-budget made-for-tv movies.  But one, although feeling like a tv dorama-doc, had a subject matter of interest to some KineJapan members, Hajimari no michi, 2013, by Hara Keiichi, billed on the menu as ‘The Keisuke Kinoshita Story – Dawn of a Filmmaker’.
It was set in mid-1945 (opening with a clip of Kinoshita’s first film, Hana saku minato, 1943) and substantially related the transporting of Kinoshita’s mother by handcart along a mountain road in Shizuoka.  You would have to know what was coming to stay awake for the first fifty minutes – a four-hankie setting of the jewel of the last ten minutes Tanaka Kinuyo in Rikugun / Army, 1944.  At the end of the film, we also had clips from :-
Waga koi seshi otome, 1946
Ojōsan kanpai`, 1949
Yaburedaiko, 1949
Karumen kokyō ni kaeru, 1951
Nihon no kigeki, 1953
Nijūshino hitomi, 1954
Nogiku no gotoki kimi nariki, 1955
Yorokobi mo kanashimi mo ikutoshitsuki, 1957
Narayama bushikō, 1958
Fuefukigawa, 1960
Eien no hito, 1961
Kōge, 1964
Shin yorokobi mo kanashimi mo ikutoshitsuki, 1986
Some of these clips, at least, had been set up in the story by visual quotes in the journey.
The clips had all been beautifully restored by this film’s producer, Shōchiku, and it looked like a show-case by them of Kinoshita’s work.  But this film was largely a trail of visual flourishes with next to no story; and it was in danger of showing, unfairly, that Kinoshita’s work might be similarly labelled .
(It was subtitled in english, if you had initially selected ‘English’ as your language.  There was no translation credit.)

(The 8 Japanese films on American Airlines are :-
Keisuke Kinoshita Story, HARA Keiichi
Fruits of Faith, NAKAMURA Yoshihiro
Maruyama , the Middle Schooler, KUDŌ Kankurō
Midsummer’s Equation, NISHITANI Hiroshi - a Fuji TV movie, distributed by Tōhō
The After-Dinner Mysteries, HIJIKATA Masato - Hong Kong based heist caper
Boy called H, FURUHATA Yasuo
The Apology King, MIZUTA Nobuo
The Human Trust, SAKAMOTO Junji  )

Roger

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