A Town of Love and Hope

Ai to kibo no machi

Japan

1959

62 Min

Black and White

2.35:1

Japanese

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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CAST Hiroshi Fujikawa, Yuki Tominaga, Yûko Mochizuki, Michio Ito, Fumio Watanabe, Kakuko Chino, Fujio Suga, Noboru Sakashita

Oshima’s remarkable first film, in which “the essence of Oshima can already be discerned” (Tadao Sato), made him an instant pariah; the studio head suspended the young director for six months, declaring A Town of Love and Hope unwholesome and leftist. (Oshima had already complained about the optimistic title forced on him; he wanted to call the film The Boy Who Sold His Pigeon.) Foreshadowing the masterpieces of Oshima’s middle period, especially Boy, but more classically neorealist in style, this black-and-white Scope debut employs a simple tale to complicated ends, and succeeds with heart-breaking acuity. Bluntly stating “I need money,” a young boy plays a con game, selling and reselling his homing pigeon to pay for his mother’s medical bills. When he is befriended by a girl whose wealthy father is a manufacturer of television sets, the impoverished boy’s chances in life seem to look up. Poetic, political, very finely acted and observed, the compact but complex Town of Love and Hope “shows that Oshima’s political acumen was a great deal stronger than Godard’s at this time” (Tony Rayns, Time Out Film Guide). “A bitter lament for the lost innocence of the teenaged” (Chuck Stephens, Film Comment). —Cinematheque Ontario

Director

Nagisa Ôshima

Nagisa Oshima’s career extends from the initiation of the “Nuberu bagu” (New Wave) movement in Japanese cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the contemporary use of cinema and television to express paradoxes in modern society. After an early involvement with the student protest movement in Kyoto, Oshima rose rapidly in the Shochiku company from the status of apprentice in 1954 to that of director. By 1960, he had grown disillusioned with the traditional studio production policies and broke away from Shochiku to form his own independent production company, Sozosha, in 1965. With other Japanese New Wave filmmakers like Masahiro Shinoda, Shohei Imamura and Yoshishige Yoshida, Oshima reacted against the humanistic style and subject matter of directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa, as well as against established left-wing political movements. Oshima has been primarily concerned with depicting the contradictions and tensions of postwar Japanese society. His… read more

Nagisa Oshima’s career extends from the initiation of the “Nuberu bagu” (New Wave) movement in Japanese cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the contemporary use of cinema and television to express paradoxes in modern society. After an early involvement with the student protest movement in Kyoto, Oshima rose rapidly in the Shochiku company from the status of apprentice in 1954 to that of director. By 1960, he had grown disillusioned with the traditional studio production policies and broke away from Shochiku to form his own independent production company, Sozosha, in 1965. With other Japanese New Wave filmmakers like Masahiro Shinoda, Shohei Imamura and Yoshishige Yoshida, Oshima reacted against the humanistic style and subject matter of directors like Yasujiro Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa, as well as against established left-wing political movements. Oshima has been primarily concerned with depicting the contradictions and tensions of postwar Japanese society. His films tend to expose contemporary Japanese materialism, while also examining what it means to be Japanese in the face of rapid industrialization and Westernization. Many of Oshima’s earlier films, such as Ai to kibo no machi (1959) and Taiyo no hakaba (1960), feature rebellious, underprivileged youths in anti-heroic roles. The film for which he is probably best known in the West, Ai no corrida (1976), centers on an obsessive sexual relationship. Like several other Oshima works, it gains additional power by being based on an actual incident. Other important Oshima films include Koshikei (1968), an examination of the prejudicial treatment of Koreans in Japan; Shonen (1969), which deals with the cruel use of a child for extortion purposes, and with the child’s subsequent escapist fantasies; Tokyo senso sengo hiwa (1970), about another ongoing concern of Oshima’s, the art of filmmaking itself; and Gishiki (1971), which presents a microcosmic view of Japanese postwar history through the lives of one wealthy family. In recent years, Oshima has repeatedly turned to sources outside Japan for the production of his films. This was the case with Ai no corrida (1976) and Max, mon amour (1986). It is less well known in the West that Oshima has also been a prolific documentarist, film theorist and television personality. He is the host of a long-running television talk show, “The School for Wives,” in which female participants (kept anonymous by a distorting glass) present their personal problems, to which he responds from offscreen. —IMDb

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