Childhood Days

I doubt many non-Japanese viewers will ever see this movie, but I recommend it if a subtitled version is available. Admittedly I am a bit biased, as I was working as a guest English teacher in the rural Japanese prefecture of Toyama when this movie was being filmed there, and in a way I became attached to the area and my life there in somewhat the same way as the displaced boy Shinji did in the story.

The film gives a glimpse into life for ordinary country people during the war, though perhaps it is a too-rosy depiction. Japanese adults who would have been the same age as the fictional boys during the final months of the war told me tales of greater hunger and deprivation than this film even hints at. But the more important aspect of the story is the complex and often harsh society of children. I wonder whether the filmmaker intended the world of the village boys to represent something of a microcosm of adult society? If I can ever find a version of this film subtitled in English perhaps I will be able to appreciate the nuances much better than my very basic Japanese allows.

This is a story of an 11-years-old boy, who went for evacuation, when Tokyo was in danger of Ameircan air-raid, to Toyama, rural village facing Japan sea, until the war ended. However, this movie does not portray horrors or misery of the World War II. The scenes that remind wartime, like air raids, food shortages or military education, are limited though important.

You see boys of particular personalities: a son of a high-ranking official in Tokyo, a poor peasant's son who is the class leader with good study performance and outrageous character, a landowner's son with good study performance and upper hand inclination, a big strong boy with poor study performance, etc. Those typical characters of the gang-age remind your own gang-age memories. In my boyhood, I was sent from my home in a city to my aunt in a village for three months while my parents could not take care of me. In the village school I was odd man out, but I could have some friends, who had in some degree resemblance with the boys in this movie. That was why after watching the movie, I could not help recalling my boyhood in strong nostalgia. Perhaps every grown-up man would find something common in his memory and the movie.

Childhood Days is a very realistic portrayal of bullying. And by realistic I mean that both the bully and the bullied are shown to very human instead of being good or bad. It is very refreshing for a change and also it suddenly dawned on me, how incomplete and even wrong a narrative is if you are showing a bullying preteen to be evil as most films related to this topic often do.

I guess we are used to watching fights between good and evil in all our media whether it is fairy tales, television, books, films or even religion. There has to be a protagonist and an antagonist. Thankfully Childhood Days is different in that regard.

Childhood Days depicts the problem of bullying faced by a city kid who has to temporarily move to village. But the relationship between the two boys, the bully and the bullied is very hard to pin down. There is a camaraderie mixed with fear and admiration with a sort of helplessness. It is a very real relationship which is hard to describe, just as many real relationships are. Also along with the bullying it is a very nice coming of age story.

I know that the above review may not make the film sound really good. Nevertheless it is really a gem of a film. And if you are into films of Ozu or Naruse, I would strongly recommend it.