Chiisakobe

This is the third film in a short period that I review from Japanese director Tasaka Tomotaka, following "Hi no ataru sakamichi" (A Slope in the Sun, 1958) and "Hadakakko" (Run, Genta, Run, 1961). Both of those films were massive with their duration, especially the three and a half hour "Slope", where the insanely slow tempo was a source of a hypnotically mundane atmosphere. "Genta" justified the minutes better with great character study and a narrative that grew up gradually with the young protagonist. It's the best film I've seen so far from Tasaka, whose approach to these films is very family-friendly, and yet not lacking psychological substance (mostly). However, the epic lengths to which he goes with his film work, do force one to ponder: what producer let a director use this much film for such simple pictures? With a little digging, the responsible party would seem to be Toei company and producer Ohkawa Hiroshi, who also allowed societal director Imai Tadashi to make few of his films considerably longer than they needed to be.

And I would be fine with Tasaka not being in a hurry, if he used the time well as he did in "Genta". His following picture "Chiisakobe" (A Carpenter and Children, 1962) does not do this. Unlike the previous films, this is set in a historical period, most likely early 19th century. The protagonist Shigetsuku (Nakamura Kinnosuke) is not exactly a carpenter as the title would suggest, but more-so an architect who runs a construction site. His just finishing a job on an island near Edo, when he gets the word, that his mother and father (of same trade) have died in a fire. Even worse, the fire that started in their family home quickly spread, and destroyed a whole wooden house village. After coming to terms with his pain, Shigetsuku travels to this area with his team, and starts rebuilding it. However, he also discovers that there are five kids, who were made orphans by the fire. A Woman named Oritsu (Eri Chiemi) is trying to help them.

All this is established in about 25 minutes, give or take a few. It is astonishingly clear to any viewer, what things will occur in the rest of the film, and yet instead of a 90 minute movie, Tasaka does this the Tasaka way, and it amounts to a whopping 170 minutes! This is insanity. The movie takes place in one location (the burned down village), it has a limited amount of characters, and it just ain't going nowhere. I liked the beginning very well, though exposition is given to the audience sometimes in amusingly corny ways, like dreams. I like Nakamura Kinnosuke as an actor, he is a good fit for the role, and the leading lady is pretty and likable.

Why is it three hours then? In "Slope" Tasaka found forms of filler that I jokingly called clever, but at least you got the sense that the scene is changing. The conflict of the film, "should orphans be treated badly or not", is not a big enough question to carry a film-epic this size (though it most likely was made with a small budget). The kids were fine, but nowhere near as memorable characters as the protagonist Genta in Tasaka's previous film. And Japanese cinema has made better films about how society treats orphan kids, from "Record of a Tenement Gentleman" to "Children of the Beehive". Tasaka's approach is too warm, but then again the film does not for the most of the duration feel warm, because Kinnosuke's character is written to be so grim.

Some nice things are to be found, but this time Tasaka has clearly gotten too excited, and delivers his audience way too much movie.