Ditch / Dobu (1954)

From its very first scene* of women racing to the railroad tracks to gather bits of coal blown off as the train passes, Kaneto Shindo's Dobu takes us into the very bottom of Japan's post-war world.** The movie focuses on a cross section of people literally living on the edge, in this case in a …

Ohara Shosuke-san (1949)

Shosuke Ohara is a character of folklore who wasted all his money, and thus it is the nickname applied to the central character of this very interesting movie by Shimizu. Denjiro Okochi, usually a samurai or a powerful father, here plays the last member of an old samurai family in a provincial small town / …

The Ball at the Anjo House / Anjo-ke no butokai (1947)

Bankrupted by the land reforms and new taxes of the Occupation era, a formerly wealthy family decide to hold one last ball in their home before they lose it. Echoes of Chekhov, particularly of The Cherry Orchard, run through everything we see. Though I think it would be unfair to call it a direct adaptation, …