OK, I see that the film essay by Michael Koresky does indicate that it is set immediately after the Second World War. That’s what I thought, but there were times during the movie that I wondered if it was set earlier than that, and that the war mentioned at the beginning might be one of the Sino- or Russo-Japanese conflicts.
Another thing puzzled me. There’s a scene where Ayako scolds Kameda for dozing off on a park bench while he is waiting to meet her. She makes a big deal of it, as though he’d done something grossly discourteous, or undiginified and unmanly, or highly eccentric. Is this something from the novel (which I read so long ago I barely remember it), or something to do with Japanese culture?
As a rough answer to the second question:
“The yen lost most of its value during and after World War II. After a period of instability, in 1949, the value of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per US$1 through a United States plan, which was part of the Bretton Woods System, to stabilize prices in the Japanese economy. That exchange rate was maintained until 1971, when the United States abandoned the gold standard, which had been a key element of the Bretton Woods System, and imposed a 10 percent surcharge on imports, setting in motion changes that eventually led to floating exchange rates in 1973.” from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_yen
To answer your third question, yea that’s something from the novel.
Thank you both.
Rgrds, petro.
Singing Mason
When is the film set?
We are told how much the dowry is in yen. Very roughly, how much is that in modern currency?