Twenty-four Eyes (Nijushi no Hitomi)
jac 03/01/23
 


 

Released: 1954
Length: 154minutes [116 minutes, US release], B/W
Producer: Shochiku
Director: Kinoshita, Keisuke
Original Story: Tsuboi, Sakae
Scriptwriter: Kinoshita, Keisuke
Cinematographer: Kusuda, Hiroshi
Music: Kinoshita, Chuji

Cast:

Takamine, Hideko
Tsukioka, Yumeji
Kobayashi, Toshiko
Igawa, Kuniko
Ryu, Chishu

and many more...   cast details here

Awards: Kinema Jumpo #1, 1954

Description:

Chronicle of a teacher and her pupils in a small Inland Sea village beginning in 1928, and carrying through twenty years of their joys and sorrows. Criticism of wartime thought control and the tragedies wrought in the lives of the island people, presented in a very touching and reserved camera style with emphasis on the beauty of the setting. [Audie Bock's Japanese Film Directors, pg 212]

Commentary:

According to Sato Tadao [Currents in Japanese Cinema]:

Twenty-four Eyes is Japan's most commercially successful anti-war film and has probably wrung more tears out of Japanese audiences than any other postwar film. [pg 108] This film is not only a chronological account of the daily lives of common people in Japan during the '30s and '40s, but also the ultimate expression of lovable and loving people suffering together in adverse circumstances. The original novel was written by Tsuboi in 1952, partly in response to the rebuilding of Japan's self-defense forces as the American military became engaged in Korea.

Sato is somewhat critical of the film, because both the original story and Kinoshita's screen treatment focus on the suffering of the Japanese people during the war, avoiding any consideration of larger issues of responsibility:

Japan had started the war--it was not a matter of us Japanese suffering at the hands of some unseen power. Yet in "Twenty-four Eyes" we are only filled with the emotion that our peaceful lives were disrupted by the war and that we lost so many pure and sincere young men. The question of how much damage we did to the enemy is neglected entirely. We only feel that we, the Japanese people, were as innocent as those adorable children and that we suffered grievously. [pg 113] In spite of (or perhaps because of) its three-hanky quality, however, Twenty-four Eyes remains one of the most significant Japanese films about WWII, illuminating how many '50s Japanese viewed the war they had so recently experienced.  Even today when this film is shown in Japan, there's not a dry eye in the house.