A Town of Love and Hope

A Town of Love and Hope
Japanese	愛と希望の街
Directed by	Nagisa Ôshima
Produced by	Tomio Ikeda
Written by	Nagisa Ôshima
Starring	Hiroshi Fujikawa; Yuki Tominaga; Kakuko Chino; Yûko Mochizuki;
Music by	Riichirô Manabe
Cinematography	Hiroshi Kusuda
Edited by	Yoshi Sugihara
Production; company	Shochiku
Distributed by	Shochiku
Release date	November 17, 1959;
Running time	62 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

A Town of Love and Hope (Japanese: 愛と希望の街, romanized: Ai to kibô no machi) is a 1959 Japanese drama film written and directed by Nagisa Ôshima. It was Ôshima's feature film debut.[1][2][3]

Plot

Masao lives with his mother, who works as a shoe polisher, and his sister in a poverty-stricken era of Tokyo. He earns extra money for the family by repeatedly selling his sister's pigeons to passersby in the city, knowing the pigeons will escape their new owners and return home after a few days. The latest buyer, upper-class girl Kyôko, unites with Masao's teacher Miss Akiyama in an act of sympathy to help Masao get a job in the company of Kyôko's father Kuhara. Kuhara first declines, but Kyôko's brother Yuji, who has developed an interest in Miss Akiyama, tries to talk him into giving Masao a chance. Yet, when Kyôko and Miss Akiyama find out that Masao's fraud was not a single but a repeated one, both turn away from him in disappointment. Breaking all ties in a final vengeful act, Kyôko once again purchases a pigeon from Masao and has her brother shoot it with his rifle.

Cast

Hiroshi Fujikawa as Masao
Yuki Tominaga as Kyôko
Kakuko Chino as Miss Akiyama, Masao's teacher
Yûko Mochizuki as Kuniko, Masao's mother
Fumio Watanabe as Yuji, Kyôko's brother
Fujio Suga as Kuhara, Kyôko's father
Michiko Ito as Yasue, Masao's sister
Noboru Sakashita as Taizô
Toyoko Uryû as Isako

Production

Due to the "new wave policy" of Shochiku studio's head Shirō Kido, designed to promote fresh and free films, Oshima was given the opportunity to write and direct his first feature film with the production title The Boy Who Sold His Pigeon. Kido, unsatisfied with the result and calling it a "tendency picture", only gave it limited distribution under the title A Town of Love and Hope. Still, reviews for the film were positive.[1] More recent reviewers have pointed out the difference of A Town of Love and Hope both to other Japanese filmmakers of its era and Italian neorealism lying in its refusal to inject humanism or humanist sentiment into its portrayal of class opposition.[2][4]

References

Richie, Donald (2005). A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (Revised edition). Tokyo, New York, London: Kodansha International. ISBN 978-4-7700-2995-9.
Jones, J.R. "Review of A Town of Love and Hope at chicagoreader.com". Retrieved 31 December 2020.
Rayns, Tony. "Review of A Town of Love and Hope at timeout.com". Retrieved 31 December 2020.
Turim, Maureen (1998). The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20665-7.

External links

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[Richie-1] Richie, Donald (2005). A Hundred Years of Japanese Film (Revised edition). Tokyo, New York, London: Kodansha International. ISBN 978-4-7700-2995-9.

[chicagoreader-2] Jones, J.R. "Review of A Town of Love and Hope at chicagoreader.com". Retrieved 31 December 2020.

[timeout-3] Rayns, Tony. "Review of A Town of Love and Hope at timeout.com". Retrieved 31 December 2020.

[Turim-4] Turim, Maureen (1998). The Films of Oshima Nagisa: Images of a Japanese Iconoclast. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-20665-7.