Director’s Cup- Film Analysis: Children in the Wind by Hiroshi Shimizu

Children in the Wind by “Hiroshi Shimizu”

Hiroshi Shimizu’s Children in the Wind is about children, to put it frankly. Not delinquent children, but children who get in trouble and learn from their mistakes. However, being set in 1930’s Japan, the term delinquent could be used thoroughly.

The film starts with brothers Zenta and Sampei being told to stop playing, and to study by their mother during dinner. Zenta is then asked by his mother to bring lunch to his father, with Sampei being told to study. This becomes a repetitious theme as Zenta is always asked to bring his father lunch. As he is older, his mother trusts him because he has maturity on his side. Sampei is jealous and calls his brother the teacher’s pet.

However, the real story coincides with the brothers’ father being fired from his job and arrested for embezzlement. The brothers’ mother looks for work while her husband is away. In the meantime, Sampei is sent to live with a retired schoolmaster, but can’t stop getting in trouble. At the end of the film, the boys return home to their parents. The last scene with the parade, and the brothers’ welcoming Kintaro (a boy who they have been bullying for the whole of the film) as their friend was a magnificent ending to such an elegant, but simple story.

As I mentioned, a film with a simple story and not a strong message in my opinion, Children with the Wind still can be considered a spiritual film. However, I took the relationship of the mother wanting her children to succeed as a very serious point. The children are children, so let them act like children. In today’s world, and especially in America, children are rarely told to study at that age. Parents want their children to succeed, but expect much less. I’m not arguing any way is better and I certainly am not an expert at this as I don’t have any children, but I feel that point represented the time period and Japan in perfect representation.

If I did get any message through the story, it was the brothers’ accepting Kintaro as a friend. I am connecting that with growing up and their mother forcing the kids to study (especially Sampei). I felt it was a simple message, but what else can you expect from a film made 73 years ago.

Yet, the main reason I enjoy this film is because of the way it was put together. Such a simple, elegant story was flourished with dazzling long takes and gorgeous scenery. Children in the Wind utilizes many techniques we take for granted today as Shimizu was a filmmaker who knew how to verse his stories as moving images, and that is what I enjoy most about his work and this film.

Touching. A progenitor perhaps of Spirit of the Beehive, or even Cria Cuervos to some extent.

I enjoyed this and appreciate you bringing it to all of us in the Cup.

Kudos.

A very beautiful film, and a very nice intro, Stephen. I really enjoyed what essentially turns out to be Sampei’s journey through this part of his life. The most touching part of the movie, to be sure, is when the mother, having given up her two sons, tries to stay reserved while essentially chasing after them. When Sampei comes back to hug her . . . really nice moment, well-handled.

^ Agreed. It’s also a very funny movie at times, especially in the beginning (or at least it is for me, a father of siblings who act just like that). I’ll definitely be seeing this film again.

Good work, Stephen.

Aside: Your last name is a comic book sound effect.

PROKOW!

This was my first Hiroshi Shimizu and to this day remains my favorite Shimizu film—I know, these things happen when you don’t depend on Criterion to dictate what you watch and go seek shit out on your own. ;) And I believe that this is the film he is most famous for in Japan.

Thanks for the introduction, Stephen. I agree with you that the film’s message is a simple one, or maybe Shimizu doesn’t really care about a message. However, it can be regarded as one of the most personal projects among his films, he cared a lot about children and loved working with them, after the war he even adopted various homeless children. The film provides an understated and spontaneous humour, especially in the scenes at the uncle’s house, and the loose structure which seems to bother some people about the film is what I regard as its strongest aspect. It’s a modest attempt to capture the children’s point of view which is carefully executed but not meticulously framed and staged as for instance the films by Mizoguchi whose long shot techniques and general avoidance of close-ups Shimizu shares as one can see in some of the stills above, but which he applys in a way that doesn’t appear like a refined aestheticism. As I mentioned on StL! Shimizu has been a “haikai no renga” writer which is a Japanese literature form known for a natural humour and combination of disparate elements, the influence of it can certainly be found in many of Shimizu’s films.

@JR: I think that Jon Kennard is responsible for selecting the film in the Director’s Cup, so he deserves to be thanked for that.

“However, it can be regarded as one of the most personal projects among his films”

I agree, which why I thought this was a spiritual film. Rather it had a message or not, Shimizu gained personal spiritualism as an artist. You could feel what he believed in when you watch the film. I love when the director is present and the star.

“It’s a modest attempt to capture the children’s point of view which is carefully executed but not meticulously framed and staged as for instance the films by Mizoguchi whose long shot techniques and general avoidance of close-ups Shimizu shares as one can see in some of the stills above, but which he applys in a way that doesn’t appear like a refined aestheticism.”

Oh I like that comment. He doesn’t seem refined, but that may have made the film that much better. It was different in its time and is different today.

The music and sound of children playing. Tenacity in the face of hardship. Playful. This is a beautiful film.

just want to add a thanks for finally making me get round to watching my first shimizu. loved it. just one thing i didn’t get for certain….when sampei is playing on his own (the first screencp in this thread) and he starts playing hide and seek and just before he gets to his baseball glove and he says to it “sampei now you’re it” were we hearing sampei call and then hearing the call he imagined coming back? so sad. so shimizu has really plunged us into the child’s world with a slight tremor of fantasy…

will definitely be buying the eclipse boxset. can’t seem to find the box set this film is from for less than a silly price on yesasia. pfooey.

What I love so much about Shimizu is his preference for location shooting. His films feel so simple, free and natural while wonderfully capturing Japan’s countryside of the 1930’s. For me this comes to a highlight in his 1936 masterpiece Arigato-san, (Mr Thank-you) which is even more minimal in execution but even more effective.

I felt like so much of the film was so similar to I Was Born, But… The locations, the family structure, the fights amongst the kids, the funny games they play, the concern about how their parents are viewed by the rest of the town.

I think I may have liked this film a little bit better though.

will post review then read comments

This film gets some things very right especially in the begining, the feeling or time off and play for a kid versus mother making you study. Relationships of brothers is spot on, feelings of stupidity, kids studying loudly to be annoying. The film is nicely shot, great use of long shot.
I found the kids annoying tho and maybe cause they were playing annoying kids. The film seemed largely improvised, in the worst sense, as the talk was real without being interesting.

One stand out scene was the kids bullying the lead because his father is going to jail, the division between carefree kids and kids with issues is well handled. The plot, which was turn out happily for everyone, had been done before with better results even in that time period. I have seen similar movies with Jackie Coogan and Shirley Temple that were much more heartfelt, with the parent issue handled in a much more compelling fashion.

Grade C+

One of the most important things for Shimizu is the relationship between the universe of children and that of the grownups. Of the three films I’ve seen about children from Shimizu (“Introspection Tower”, “Jiro’s History”, “Children in the wind”) I can refer to an obsession with the rupture between parents and children and those micro-lessons stemming from such separation, which always lead to some kind of learning. The spiritual growth of these orphan or semi-orphan children is based on the relationship with his new temporal parents, guardians or teachers, that like any adaptation, is not easy at the beginning. Shimizu has a great sensitivity to the space environment and the ways to represent it, in function of the problems that children will face in an eventual learning. This way, children learn from their natural and social affective environment.

I really enjoyed this film and its relatively understated approach. Like others have mentioned, there was a decent amount of humor in the film, which I think helped it avoid sentimentality. Like how the boys managed to play Olympics even while their father had been arrested, which was a very touching, and funny scene. It really captures the fact there is joy even in bad times and the living “in the moment” quality children can have which is part of their appeal. There were so many touching moments for me which were touching precisely because they weren’t strongly emphasized, lending a naturalness to them. Like when Sampei closes the window blinds to keep the other children from gawking at his father. Or when at the end of the film, Sampei is sumo wrestling with his father and one can obviously tell that he is using this moment to embrace him. This has been one of my favorite films of the competition thus far.

I just watched this movie last night. Sorry I’m late.

I have scanned through everyone’s comments and agree with a lot of what is said. However, something about the movie just didn’t sit well with me. I can’t figure out exactly what…but I think it’s the whole storyline with the father. It seemed forced into the movie to allow for the main focus which is the children- their interactions, struggles, conflict, growth, and maturity. For me, everything dealing with the children was masterfully depicted with a type of raw honesty that I really appreciate in film. Having been raised with an Asian upbringing myself, I was able to relate to many of the issues that the children in the movie encountered.

There were many scenes that I found truly delightful to watch- the older brother trying to climb up the tree, the scene in which the kids are watching the brothers’ father get fired, the scene in which the brothers’ are maturing and helping out around the house, I liked when they were playing Olympic too.

The storyline with the father and with the happily-ever-after resolution with gaiety and reunion just threw off the genuine nature of the film for me.