☆ ☆ ☆
Carmen
Comes Home (1951) – K. Kinoshita
It is rather jarring to see Hideko
Takamine in her role as a comic floozy after knowing her beloved turns as a caring
schoolteacher in Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) and as an often suffering romantic heroine
in Mikio Naruse’s many great films of the Fifties and Sixties, especially When
a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960). Yet,
she pulls it off (including some songs), even if the film itself is something
of a trifle (albeit the first colour film in Japan). The plot sees a rural village (in the shadow
of Mt. Asama, Gunma Prefecture) excited to discover that one of its departed
residents, a dancer with stage name Lily Carmen, is soon to return from Tokyo
in triumph. Her father is not so sure
she is really an artist (as advertised) and indeed it turns out that she is a
stripper to the shock of many. She
returns with one of her colleagues and turns the small village upside down with
her brazen antics. It is a bit difficult
to determine whether director Keisuke Kinoshita is laughing at these country
bumpkins (including Chishû Ryû as an uptight school principal, also very
different than in his many pictures for Ozu) or if he is passing judgment on
the women’s behaviour. It is probably
the former (Carmen’s behaviour is excused because she had a childhood head
injury!?!) and the film ends with a striptease show (with only suggested nudity
– this is 1951) that feels a bit prurient. Nevertheless, the money raised is
put to a good purpose (contributing to the local school, paying down a blind
man’s debt and convincing his greedy landlord to return a harmonium to him),
most leering men are ridiculed, and the girls merrily depart. The film even yielded a sequel, but it isn’t a
classic by any means.
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