In The Garden of Women, Keisuke Kinoshita explores post-war Japan through a girls' college with repressive (read: traditional) values and policies, which the students feel they have to fight against so stay relevant in the New Japan. The school becomes a microcosm where issues germane to Japanese society as a whole are addressed. The Red Scare. The role of women. Growing inequity in the wake of WWII's bombing runs. When I watch Kinoshita's films, I get a better understanding of Japanese culture as we know it now, in particular their industrious drive, millions of people looking to find a productive place in society following the war, to escape the onset of poverty. At the same time, there's the encroachment of the rest of the world, American influence of course, but communism as an inspiration for civil rights. The Garden of Women is perhaps a little long, but it has a lot to say, following a number of young women (and an older one) and their particular dramas. And it ends somewhat abruptly. I don't think it's a strong or touching as Farewell to Dream which came two years later and has a couple of the same actors, but it's pure Kinoshita, putting the national malaise on the screen for all to see.
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nbats
https://adult.noodlemagazine.com/watch/636784_456239272no subs
elcid
The influence of private interest in education, that is today so relevant as in this film in the 50s.Siskoid
In The Garden of Women, Keisuke Kinoshita explores post-war Japan through a girls' college with repressive (read: traditional) values and policies, which the students feel they have to fight against so stay relevant in the New Japan. The school becomes a microcosm where issues germane to Japanese society as a whole are addressed. The Red Scare. The role of women. Growing inequity in the wake of WWII's bombing runs. When I watch Kinoshita's films, I get a better understanding of Japanese culture as we know it now, in particular their industrious drive, millions of people looking to find a productive place in society following the war, to escape the onset of poverty. At the same time, there's the encroachment of the rest of the world, American influence of course, but communism as an inspiration for civil rights. The Garden of Women is perhaps a little long, but it has a lot to say, following a number of young women (and an older one) and their particular dramas. And it ends somewhat abruptly. I don't think it's a strong or touching as Farewell to Dream which came two years later and has a couple of the same actors, but it's pure Kinoshita, putting the national malaise on the screen for all to see.Limbesdautomne
No actresses crunch hazelnuts like Keiko Kishi. Or, when a triumphant clicking of teeth causes the Japanese New Wave.Read more in French on La Saveur des goûts amers.