Musuko no seishun

Kobayashi Masaki made many outstanding, classic movies, and he's surely one of the most widely celebrated filmmakers of Japanese cinema. It seems strange at the outset that he would also make a picture of such an abbreviated length; moreover, stood next to pretty much any point of comparison, the predominant tone here is very light, if not almost bubbly. In its portrayal of the domestic life of a family - mother, father, and two teenaged sons - one is frankly reminded of 50s sitcoms on television in the United States, and this is echoed in Kobayashi's direction just as much as in the writing of Hayashi Fusao and Nakamura Sadao. Even where 'Youth of the son' gets relatively "intense and dramatic" it's in arguments and scuffles between clean-cut, well-dressed boys, and even this is just to broach underlying themes; in every other capacity this is a half-step away from the cutesiness of 'Leave it to Beaver' or its kin. This applies without fail to the character writing, the scene writing and dialogue, the plot, the acting, and even Kinoshita Chuji's music. Further accentuating the point, the "Happy Birthday" song is sung, and it's not the only tune herein. What a far cry from 'Kwaidan' and 'Harakiri!'

Yet none of this is specifically a mark against this little film, not even the wide, beaming smiles that the actors commonly wear throughout, nor the slight shift in tone in the last ten minutes or so. The vibes are wildly unexpected, but that is no reflection on quality. In fact, though I'm deeply curious about how 'Youth of the son' came to be in the first place, I can't say I didn't enjoy it, and it's well made exactly as it is. It really is charming, truthfully, and even funny, and endearing; in some measure it's a refreshing change of pace when stood next to the post-war dramas, the yakuza flicks, and the jidaigeki that commonly populated much of contemporary and subsequent Japanese cinema. The performances are as unfailingly vibrant and lovely as the costume design, hair, and makeup are sharp; the sets and filming locations alike are swell. The cinematography is smart and vivid, and likewise the editing, and the music adds nice flavor. There's just enough variety and warmhearted earnestness in the tiny feature to offset the general tendency toward kitsch, and the result is surprising - a pleasing, lighthearted joy that is a welcome breath of fresh air amidst the troubles of real life and the ponderous storytelling of much of the medium.

The story plays with notions of parenting, and raising boys into young men; flashes of more harsh emotions are temporary as they propel the diminutive narrative, and these forty-five minutes end as cheerfully as they begin. All told this may come off as a tad peculiar, but mostly on account of the oeuvre of the man who made it, and even at that its writing and direction are perfectly solid. It may be a smidgen ham-handed, but it's also not without meaningful heart to keep it grounded. 'Youth of the son' definitely caught me off-guard, and while I don't think it's anything that demands viewership, I'm happy to say that it really is a good time when all is said and done. Sometimes a short burst of frivolity is just what we need, and if that's what you're looking for or if you're just a fan of Kobayashi, I'm glad to give this my recommendation.

45-minutes is kind of an awkward length for a film. It's more than a short film, but it's much shorter than what is typically considered feature length. Too long to have that sort of tight focus of a short film, but too short to expand the story effectively like a feature, Youth of the Son sits uncomfortably in the middle. It's also surprisingly sweetly natured, considering what I know of the director Masaki Kobayashi's later work. A nice little story about a family of four as the two teenage sons grow up in different ways. If we could actually get solid time with both sons, it might have been pretty good.

Haruhiko (Ishihama Akira) is the eldest son of Hideo (Kita Ryuji) and Chiyoko (Miyake Kuniko). He has a crush on a girl Morikawa (Kozono Yoko) that he's afraid of revealing to his parents. Meanwhile, his younger brother Akihiko (Motoji Fujiwara) is getting in with a bad boy Uemura (Ryu Chishu). The parents ruminate about how young love forms, Akihiko's resistance to haircuts, and their own aging status one morning. When Haruhiko sheepishly asks his parents if he can invite Morikawa to his birthday party, his parents are overjoyed, but reserved (this is Japan), at their oldest son reaching the age where interest in girls blooms. Of course, he can invite Morikawa, as well as several other girls.

That night, Haruhiko and Akihiko get into a fight in their room because Haruhiko implied that Uemura was a bad seed. Defending his friend's honor, Akihiko throws some punches, and we get to see the different parenting styles of the two parents. Hideo wants to see his sons fight it out, just to get the conflict over with so they can move on with their lives. Chiyoko wants her two boys to just get along and be happy without conflict.

And then Akihiko largely disappears from the film. Instead, we watch the nascent romance of Haruhiko and Morikawa at the birthday party followed by the two going into Tokyo for a date (kind of the opposite of One Wonderful Sunday where the two have gobs of money and don't know what to do with it instead of having no money). It's cute stuff, demonstrating the halting way young people approach new, adult situations they don't quite understand. The other side of the equation, Akihiko and his friendship with Uemura, falls completely to offscreen action and post-hoc explanations after they get into a fight with some visiting students to the area. Uemura's father, who has a small anger problem and antagonism with the local police chief, ends up accidentally angering the police chief to the point where he puts both boys in detention for the night.

The contrast between Haruhiko's innocent and sweet moment of growth against Akihiko's more violent one would have been interesting to see play out. However, hiding it from us is an odd choice. I can find nothing written about the film, but I wonder if it was supposed to be filmed and then dropped either during production due to cost reasons or during editing because it wasn't very good and Kobayashi figured his film worked fine as a 45-minute film instead.

Akihiko's side of the story ends up vastly underserved, and we're left with about two-thirds of a story that ends on kind of a weird note where a small judo match breaks out in front of the family home between the brothers and Uemura with all three parents cheering it on. I'm really unsure of what this is saying.

The performances across the board are largely cheerful, but the shortened nature of the storytelling serves as an impediment to everything rather than as an asset.

One thing that interested me, somewhat removed from the film's positive or negative attributes, was the presence of English throughout. The two boys go on separate routes at a fork in the road, marked by a Coca-Cola sign. At the birthday party, all of the Japanese children sing the Happy Birthday song in English with English decorations around the room. And, most interestingly, Haruhiko sings "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" more than once (Morikawa wears a yellow ribbon, of limited value in black and white photography), a song written by an American about an American soldier and that had, three years earlier, been the title of a John Wayne/John Ford cavalry film where the song had featured prominently (with lyrics changed slightly to more directly fit the cavalry setting). The American occupation of Japan was in the final stages when this film was made in the early parts of 1952, officially ending on April 28 (the film was released in June). Was this one of the final films that had concerns about appeasing American censors? Maybe. It's just kind of interesting to note.

Anyway, the film is okay. Shorter, and they'd have to rewrite it. Longer, and they'd have to film more stuff. However, stuck in the middle it can't quite effectively tell the story it tries to tell. There's warmth and niceness, especially in the first half, along with a perfectly competent sense of framing and editing from Kobayashi and his technical team, but it just doesn't quite work as a whole.

Kobayashi's debut is not only the anti-thesis of the films he's most known for - It's warm, bubbling and charmingly innocent - but also an thoroughly impressive first film. Though constantly threading close to the silly this romanticized drama comedy about an average Japanese family and their son who is becoming a man, was just too irresistible. I can easily see why many wouldn't consider it a great work however, and some contrivances were pushing it. It's saving grace here is the consistent style that allows this. Can't see any veteran doing this better, and my, in hindsight, the contrast to his latter work is as if planned. Having yet to discover most of his early films I can't wait to see the rest of his evolution and how he went from this to Black River, that until now was the earliest film I had seen from him. The change could not be greater, the only thing they have in common is his craftsmanship.

Kobayashi Masaki, the gritty master behind "Ningen no joken" (The Human Condition, 1959-1962) and "Seppuku" (Harakiri, 1962) started his career as an assistant director and screenwriter to several films by Kinoshita Keisuke. Serving his internship under such a figure left a clear mark to Kobayashi, whose first own directorial efforts closely resembled the films that Kinoshita had turned out during the late 1940's and early 50's. Mind you, the classic period of Kinoshita's career was yet to come.

Kinoshita made the kind of films that Shochiku liked to release: contemporary blends of drama and comedy, with modern sentiments, without over-politicizing everything (though there were exceptions). Kobayashi, a man haunted by his experience of WWII, was not the right guy to make films like this, but had initially problems of getting his darker narratives off the ground, with the studio being as it was.

"Musuko no seishun" (Youth of the Son, 1952) is Kobayashi's debut. Only 45 minutes in length - he would come to be known for extremely long films - you would never guess who made it. The film is a warm depiction of a post-war Japanese family with two sons approaching adulthood and enjoying their youth. "Youth" in this film's view is a simplistic concept, which mostly includes dating girls and fighting with other boys, and thus getting into trouble.

Though the film is very short indeed, the tone varies, but it's for the most part an enjoyable experience. The strangest aspect, considering again who Kobayashi would come to be as a filmmaker, is that this film includes a bunch of singing. Besides hearing "Happy Birthday to You" in English, the young people of this film are singing the theme song to John Ford's 1949 film "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" in Japanese. This was a bit surreal, but certainly a memorable curiosity.

The cinematography is better than in an average Shochiku debut of that era, some would argue that it's better than that of an average Shochiku film, even though the cinematographer Takamura Kuratoro was only at the beginning of his career. Acting feels slightly loose, because the narrative is not grounded, but the actors are very pleasant. Ishihama Akira would go on to play an important role in "Harakiri", and of the studio regulars, Miyake Kuniko, Kita Ryuji and Ryu Chishu contribute also to the charm of the whole.

All in all, Kobayashi's filmography being much smaller in quantity than that of his contemporaries, with only 21 feature films, I understand that many of his fans will want to check this out. It's not up to his later standards, but it's also not his worst film, as his early filmography contains a few missteps like "Mittsu no ai" (Three Loves, 1954). "Youth of the Son" is interesting, because it's the debut of a famous director, though I would suspect that it would have been forgotten if this hadn't been the case.