Ballad of the Cart
Niguruma no uta
Japan
1959
145 Min
Black and White
Japanese
Synopsis
Set in a rural area in Hiroshima prefecture between 1894 and 1940, the film is a grandiose portrait of sacrifices from a modest farming family to ensure their survival in a period of profound social change and to cope with the never dormant dynamics conflict between mother-in-law and daughter. To bear the weight of so many hardships and struggle with determination not to yield to difficulties women of the family, especially the protagonist, Seki, Otoyo and her daughter, portrayed by Yamamoto with intense realism and performed by great stars of the day. The film was produced independently by the film division of the National Farmers Japan and funded by the contributions of three million women representing the women’s wing of the Association.
Director
Satsuo Yamamoto
Satsuo Yamamoto (山本 薩夫 Yamamoto Satsuo?, July 15, 1910 – August 11, 1983) was a Japanese film director.
Yamamoto was born in Kagoshima Prefecture on July 15, 1910. He dropped out of Waseda University to join Shochiku, where he worked as an assistant director to Mikio Naruse and others. He followed Naruse when he moved to PCL, and became a director in his own right after the company was reborn as Toho. During WWII he directed several pro-war propaganda films for them despite being a fervent member of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and after the war he rallied against the company as a driving force behind the union during the 1948 Toho labour dispute (in which the JCP was heavily involved), after which was ultimately fired.
He subsequently worked on independent films and made numerous intensely rebellious and substantial socially conscious works. From the 1960s onward, he directed a succession of major films including the Toyoko Yamasaki adaptations “The Ivory Tower”… read more
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