What a discovery! Japan's first color movie...
As a film student with a special interest in Japanese cinema many years ago, I was always under the impression that GATE OF HELL (1953), a spectacular samurai drama, was Japan’s very first color feature. In all this time I never came across any mention of an earlier Japanese color film. Until this year, when I found a reference to CARMEN COMES HOME (1951) as “Japan’s first color film” in the autobiographical manga, “A Drifting Life,” by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. (The same book where I first read about Hibari Misora and Sannin Musume.) Intrigued, I sought further info on this film and wound up buying a DVD of it from YesAsia, a Hong Kong on-line service that offered an edition with English subtitles (something I’d never find on CDJapan).
What a beautiful movie, with gorgeous color photography, all shot on location in a farm town at the foot of Mount Asama, an active volcano on the central Japanese island of Honshu. Many of the shots are framed with the majestic mountain as a backdrop, with steam occasionally rising from it. The plot has to do with a small-town girl named Okin, who ran away from home years earlier and reinvented herself as a Tokyo showgirl named Lily Carmen. She comes back to town, with money and gifts for her embarrassed father, accompanied by a fellow showgirl named Maja Akemi. The humor arises from the showgirls’ sometimes awkward encounters with the townsfolk, such as when Maja openly flirts with the town’s handsome young schoolteacher, Mr. Ogawa, who complains that she’s “bullying” him. It’s not that he doesn’t like her, he’s just never encountered such aggressive behavior before.
The joke here is that the town initially thinks that Carmen is some kind of celebrated dancer who succeeded in the world of high culture in Tokyo. Pleading with the girl's reluctant father, the elderly school principal even endorses her visit under the impression that her return will bring some form of Japanese culture back to the town. After she's settled back in, it gradually becomes clear that the kind of dancing she's popular in Tokyo for is not what the principal had in mind. The reigning local businessman, however, sees a chance to make a buck off of Carmen and Maja, all while promoting “art,” of course, so he gives Carmen her sole chance to show the townsfolk what she can do. And the jaws drop when she and Maja perform...their striptease act!
The most exhilarating moments in the film occur when Carmen and Maja decide to perform spontaneously, usually while frolicking on a hilltop meadow. At one point, alone on a meadow, the girls break into their notorious dance routine after stripping down to bra-style halter tops and shorts. Little do they know that Mr. Ogawa is nearby instructing a class of boys in the art of sketching Mount Asama when he spots the girls. After scrambling for a closer look and gazing at them in awe, he realizes that the boys are as entranced as he is and he forces them down the mountain as quick as he can. Carmen is also given to singing on a moment’s whim, whether riding a wagon to her childhood home or walking through a forest path in a brightly colored dress and full makeup. The girls tart themselves up throughout the film, not to scandalize the town, but simply because that’s the way they dress up every day in Tokyo. It’s normal to them. The one song Carmen sings, over and over, is an American blues-style "love song" in Japanese.
It’s a cute, charming, humorous film, never laugh-out-loud funny, but never too melodramatic either. It’s a slice-of-life look at rural Japan in the postwar era. (Contrast this with Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, also set in a farm town in postwar Japan.) As a lost piece of Japanese film history, CARMEN COMES HOME is quite a revelation, especially right after seeing JANKEN MUSUME, a color musical made four years later (and discussed in the previous blog entry).
Carmen (Hideko Takamine) breaks into song while riding a wagon from the train station to her childhood home.
Maja (Toshiko Kobayashi) and Carmen framed against Mount Asama.
The crisp mountain air inspires Carmen to dance.
Carmen breaks into song while walking a forest path.
Carmen and Maja prepare their grand entrance at the town's Sports Festival. Note Carmen's subtitled admonition to the flirtatious Maja.
What a beautiful movie, with gorgeous color photography, all shot on location in a farm town at the foot of Mount Asama, an active volcano on the central Japanese island of Honshu. Many of the shots are framed with the majestic mountain as a backdrop, with steam occasionally rising from it. The plot has to do with a small-town girl named Okin, who ran away from home years earlier and reinvented herself as a Tokyo showgirl named Lily Carmen. She comes back to town, with money and gifts for her embarrassed father, accompanied by a fellow showgirl named Maja Akemi. The humor arises from the showgirls’ sometimes awkward encounters with the townsfolk, such as when Maja openly flirts with the town’s handsome young schoolteacher, Mr. Ogawa, who complains that she’s “bullying” him. It’s not that he doesn’t like her, he’s just never encountered such aggressive behavior before.
The joke here is that the town initially thinks that Carmen is some kind of celebrated dancer who succeeded in the world of high culture in Tokyo. Pleading with the girl's reluctant father, the elderly school principal even endorses her visit under the impression that her return will bring some form of Japanese culture back to the town. After she's settled back in, it gradually becomes clear that the kind of dancing she's popular in Tokyo for is not what the principal had in mind. The reigning local businessman, however, sees a chance to make a buck off of Carmen and Maja, all while promoting “art,” of course, so he gives Carmen her sole chance to show the townsfolk what she can do. And the jaws drop when she and Maja perform...their striptease act!
The most exhilarating moments in the film occur when Carmen and Maja decide to perform spontaneously, usually while frolicking on a hilltop meadow. At one point, alone on a meadow, the girls break into their notorious dance routine after stripping down to bra-style halter tops and shorts. Little do they know that Mr. Ogawa is nearby instructing a class of boys in the art of sketching Mount Asama when he spots the girls. After scrambling for a closer look and gazing at them in awe, he realizes that the boys are as entranced as he is and he forces them down the mountain as quick as he can. Carmen is also given to singing on a moment’s whim, whether riding a wagon to her childhood home or walking through a forest path in a brightly colored dress and full makeup. The girls tart themselves up throughout the film, not to scandalize the town, but simply because that’s the way they dress up every day in Tokyo. It’s normal to them. The one song Carmen sings, over and over, is an American blues-style "love song" in Japanese.
It’s a cute, charming, humorous film, never laugh-out-loud funny, but never too melodramatic either. It’s a slice-of-life look at rural Japan in the postwar era. (Contrast this with Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, also set in a farm town in postwar Japan.) As a lost piece of Japanese film history, CARMEN COMES HOME is quite a revelation, especially right after seeing JANKEN MUSUME, a color musical made four years later (and discussed in the previous blog entry).
Carmen (Hideko Takamine) breaks into song while riding a wagon from the train station to her childhood home.
Maja (Toshiko Kobayashi) and Carmen framed against Mount Asama.
The crisp mountain air inspires Carmen to dance.
Carmen breaks into song while walking a forest path.
Carmen and Maja prepare their grand entrance at the town's Sports Festival. Note Carmen's subtitled admonition to the flirtatious Maja.