#Hiroshi shimizu hidden islands movie
#Hiroshi shimizu hidden islands series

Thank You feels like an even more minimal version of Hou Hsiao-HsienвЂ™s Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996). The plotlessness of ShimizuвЂ™s films gives them a strikingly modern qualityГўВЂВ¦' Indeed, the almost real-time bus trip that comprises Mr. As Chris Fujiwara explains, 'Shimizu favors a gradual and rhizomatic expansion of plotless incidents, whose critical points can be perceived only through hints, indirections, and cries and confessions that come too late.

#Hiroshi shimizu hidden islands series

Plots are but series of vignettes, with major events handled in ellipses and preference given to the passing minutiae of chitchat and everyday gestures. Like extended anecdotes, they are confined to a single location and feature ensemble-type casts. Thank You (1936), The Masseurs and a Woman (1938), and Ornamental Hairpin (1941) - all share a similar narrative construction. And while expressionistic gestures appear now and then, Japanese Girls at the Harbor is largely a naturalistic work, attuned to the rhythm and textures of both nature and urbanity. But the film is anything but a genre-knockoff: ShimizuвЂ™s characteristic use of location shooting and lyrical photography are unlike anything von Sternberg or Hollywood studios would offer at that time. Traces of Josef von SternbergвЂ™s silent The Docks of New York (1928) are present throughout, particularly in the symbolic use of latticed shadows and shooting through bars to 'trap' the characters. Expectedly, such a secret canвЂ™t remain hidden forever, and when Sunako discovers HenryвЂ™s infidelity, she shoots her rival and begins moving from port to port as a prostitute. Unbeknownst to them, Henry has another woman on the side. Best friends, theyвЂ™re both in love with the same boy, a motorcycle-riding lad named Henry. A mash-up of American pulp melodrama and what Paul Schrader has termed 'transcendentalism' (in which directorial style elevates the film to an almost spiritual plane beyond the realm of the narrative), the story concerns two young girls, Sunako and Dora, in the port of Yokohama.

#Hiroshi shimizu hidden islands movie

The sole representation of ShimizuвЂ™s silent films, Japanese Girls at the Harbor (1933), is also the most genre-specific movie in the box set. For the first time, American audiences will have access to one of the foundational artists of Japanese cinema, whose prolific output between 19 (166 films) well exceeds the combined filmographies of Ozu and Mizoguchi. All of which makes Eclipse Series 15: Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu not only an exciting, long-overdue release, but also a historically redefining moment. Contemporary American audiencesвЂ™ conceptions, in particular, are formed almost exclusively by Yasujiro OzuвЂ™s playful formalism and Kenji MizoguchiвЂ™s tragic heroines.

Between unstable nitrate stocks (used for early films), poor preservation and earthquakes -not to mention World War II - most of those films are irrevocably lost to history. Our understanding of pre-World War II Japanese cinema has been limited not merely to those few films in distribution, but to those even in existence.

Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu, Criterion Eclipse, out today