Film

A Fond Face from the Past

1941 · 34m · Drama

IMDb

6.8

A Fond Face from the Past is also set in a rural community, specifically a village outside Kameoka, near Kyoto. In some ways this short, thirty-six-minute film is Naruse's most moving negotiation of the militarist restrictions of the time, perhaps because it is also his most direct engagement with the culture of war. When a newsreel comes to Kameoka featuring a local man named Yoichi, it causes some excitement in the community and, of course, in Yoichi's own family. First of all his mother makes the newsreel (Nippon News, no. 14), which begins with the same marching music that opens his own film, followed by a curious baby judging context in Los Angeles featuring two hundred Japanese babies. Released in January 1941, almost a year before the pacific war begins, this “found footage” is indicative of Japanese imperialist ambitions beyond Asia long before Pearl Harbor.

Ranko Hanai

Osumi

Takashi Kodaka

Tsuruko Mano

Kinji Fujiwa

Taizō Fukami

Schoolteacher

Masaru Kodaka

Shin-chan

Sumihiko Hara

Ken-chan

Makoto Matsuzaki

Masa-chan

Fumio Okura

Masa-chan's father

Soji Watari

Shige-san

• Mikio NaruseDirector · Screenplay · Writer
• Teppei HimuroExecutive Producer
• Seiichi KizukaDirector of Photography
• Tadashi OtaOriginal Music Composer
• Shigeru MatsuuraEditor

Release date

January 18, 1941

Status

Released

Original language

Japanese

Runtime

34m

Genres

Drama