Karumen kokyo ni kaeru

So wonderful finally experiencing these actors in color! They take Japan's first Fujicolor movie outdoors and make a full party out of it, showcasing a lot of eye-candy to make the film as attractive as they could. I'm already loving Japanese cinema more!

Like other Kinoshita films it’s just a movie that grasps the concepts of empathy so well. The changing social dynamics of rural Japan in the post world war era. How women are searching for their place in art. How their sexuality plays into that

"There's never been any proof of that tradition actually existing." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/10/episode-75-keisuke-kinoshita-in-living.html

Light yet stubbornly defiant of the conventions of the premise. It touches on several expected themes but in the end it's not clear what we should make of Carmen's visit, or of Carmen and the townspeople themselves. Standout moments are the Carmen's climactic performance, and the bizarre schoolyard song & dance routine that looks like something out of the Wicker Man. Plus we get to see Chishuu Ryuu perform a judo throw on someone.

Hideko Takamine is really cute in this. Aside from her and some nice visuals, pretty forgettable. In other words, typical Kinoshita.

Tradition and modernity scrape up against each other in this Kinoshita comedy, where a girl who has become an "artist" (read stripper) in the big city comes home to her mortified father. Similar to the Yoji Yamada's Tora San movies, the center of the comedy is the girl's social maladroitness, her failure to understand the chaos she causes with her habit of taking off her clothes at the drop of a hat. One of Hideko Takamine's great early roles.