Tokai no yokogao

Though he continued directing films for another 11 years, Shimizu Hiroshi could not reach the heights of "Hachi no su no kodomotachi" (Children of the Beehive, 1948) after completing that post-war masterwork. For the remainder of his career, which has afterwards been overshadowed by his pre-war and war-time works, Shimizu continued with the core theme of his filmography, that being children, but turned in uneven films. Before the shameless tear-jerker "Shiinomi gakuen" (The Shiinomi School, 1955), Shimizu made "Toka no yokogao" (Tokyo Profile, 1953), a much lighter depiction of childhood.

The film is set in the busy commercial neighborhood of Ginza, full of stores and restaurants and theaters. This is a massive change from "Beehive" already, with just five years between the two films. It's honestly what like the best in this film. It has been shot on the streets, it's lively, and serves as a document about the re-built nation at that moment in time. But don't be mistaken, neo-realism this is not.

The film is about a little girl named Michiko (Atami Sachiko) who gets separated from her mom, when they are shopping in the district. A sign carrier (Ikebe Ryo) helps the girl, by escorting her around the area looking for the mom (Kogure Michiyo), who is also looking for the child. Arima Ineko is in the film as well as a shoe-shiner, and has a small romance with Ikebe.

The film runs only 75 minutes, and the narrative would seem to be sufficient for it. Yet, Shimizu gets distracted very easily. The film wonders on to side characters who are present without a reason, there a songs and stage performances, and the tone of the film all over the place. The director's approach is very lightweight, and yet you can hardly have a good time with a narrative that is built around child's distress. Michiko is constantly becoming a supportive cast member in her own movie, and the other characters, with whom Shimizu is trying to create this "a day in the life of Ginza -tale" don't really have enough to do, to warrant them being here.

At his best, Shimizu was wonderful at exploring the psychology of children, but this film doesn't try it. It's too cheerful and too loose. Perhaps Shimizu is trying to make us all feel, like we are lost in Ginza, doomed to venture among strange, passing faces, none of whom we get to know very well.

In Ginza, the classy shopping district of Tokyo, there are a lot of people. Some are regular inhabitants. Some go there to shop or meet lovers. And some go there to steal, sometimes on the spur of the moment. Things being how they are, when little Sachiko Atami is found wandering around without her mother, she is delivered to sandwich-board man Ryô Ikebe. He always takes care of lost children until they can be reunited with their parents, with the police the last resort. But her mother, who is looking for her, is at sixes and sevens, as Miss Atami scampers off to wander around the regulars of the district.

Director Hiroshi Shimizu was an expert in movies about lost children, even though the lost children he was usually concerned about were in far more dire straits than in the calm village that Ginza is shown as in this movie. Even so, there is an undercurrent of alienation here, not just on the part of lost children, but of adults who see the Ginza only as a happy place to get a coffee, see a show, or purchase expensive goods.