In short: Carmen Comes Home (1951)

Original title: Karumen kokyô ni kaeru

When her theatre closes for renovation, artistic dancer – or as most people would call her, stripper – Carmen (Hideko Takamine) and a dancer friend of hers return to Carmen’s old home in the country for a visit. Being a bit of a flake, as well as a someone who is clearly herself so totally, it becomes as admirable as it can be ridiculous, our heroine causes all kinds of chaos. She also opens up old family wounds in her deeply conservative father – Carmen herself, bless her, is clearly over that sort of thing – and does cause some hormonal troubles in parts of the local population.

When it came out, this comedy by Keisuke Kinoshita was an immense hit. In part, this is certainly because it was the first Japanese colour feature film. It never looks and feels like the first, though, for Kinoshita uses colour as if he’d been doing it all his life, studied what it’s good for in filmmaking, and is now calmly applying what he learned with the calm assuredness of a man who has worked in colour for ages. So visually, this is a pretty astonishing movie that makes wonderful use of the contrasts between natural country colours – this was mostly shot on location – and the joyous, colourful, artificiality of Carmen’s wardrobe and makeup.

The humour hasn’t aged quite as well, of course, so there are some stretches in the film that were probably very funny indeed when this came out but now simply feel old-fashioned and aged; at other times, things still work quite well, particularly whenever the film has its fun with the contrasts between Carmen’s overblown, paper-thin personality and her less flashy surroundings.

Pleasantly, particularly with this kind of material, the film doesn’t have a judgmental bone in his body: it sees and makes fun of the folly of Carmen as well as the conservatism and boringness of her former peers, but it does so in a way that lacks mean-spiritedness. Kinoshita is very willing to point things out and laugh at them, but he’s not here to humiliate anyone. In fact, whenever the film turns more melodramatic, it shows respect for the emotions of both sides of any argument, with less interest in one side being right but in people finding a way to live with one another despite their differences. Which is so much the opposite of 2023, I’m nearly becoming nostalgic for a world that never actually was that way.

In short: Danger Stalks Near (1957)

Original title: Fuzen no tomoshibi

The not terribly well off Sato family has very publicly won a very pricey camera. They’re not planning on using it to take photos, but are hoping to sell it for quite a bit of money. After all, husband Kaneshige’s (Keiji Sada) wages as a shoe seller and Yuriko’s (Hideko Takamine) housewifing are not bringing much money in when the couple takes care of their son and Yuriko’s mother (Akiko Tamura) who is of course living with the Satos. Not out of love or duty, mind you, but because Yuriko and Kaneshige hope to inherit a neat sum of money from her.

There’s also some business about Yuriko throwing out a lodger (type: modern woman) and hoping to acquire a new one; Yuriko’s sisters coming for money and to give unwanted advice; and a whole horde of other people – boyfriends, prospective boyfriends, delivery people and craftsmen, running into and out of the house as if it were a train station.

All of which rather disturbs the plans of a trio of young hoodlums (one of them a very unwilling one) watching the house to find some time when it is not too full of people to rob it.

This comedy is not usually seen as one of the “big” films of its director Keisuke Kinoshita, but going in not expecting much, I found myself pleasantly surprised. The film is very easily – and obviously – readable as a critique of a way of life where every human interaction turns into a transaction as well as a bit of a send-up of the idea of perfect, harmonic and somewhat traditional family life. As such, it manages to avoid preachiness or the sort of whiny sentimentality that could come with this territory all too easily.

Instead, Danger Stalks Near (certainly this week’s nominee for film with the least fitting title) is a rather joyful affair. There’s a palpable love for heaving one farcical development on top of the other, Kinoshita timing each ever more improbable development with the directorial version of a winning grin, as well as a kind of loving snarkiness that doesn’t feel very 1957 at all.

There’s a flow to the film that reminds me of the best screwball comedies, the film dancing from scene to scene, embracing absurdities and taking the mores of its time not seriously in a very serious way. The actors seem to have quite a bit of fun as well. Particularly Takamine (one of the favoured actresses of many a director of this phase of Japanese studio filmmaking) projects so much enjoyment in what she’s doing, it is sometimes easy to forget how unpleasantly materialistic she and everyone around her actually are. This doesn’t damage the film’s point, but rather puts a human face on it, and leaves this a funny instead of a judgemental movie.