Since I have a few film buffs on my friend’s list, and just read two different friends’ reviews on different Japanese films they have recently seen, I thought I would share two movies we saw in my class this past semester (History of Japan since 1865).

The first film we saw was Tokyo Story. 
As Japan was modernizing and more and more people were moving into the cities to live the ‘modern’ life … the older generation and the values of the culture of Japan began to shift drastically. This film does a great job of capturing that shift and how the ‘old’ generation was treated/felt regarding the new generation emerging and how the new generation felt about old customs, etc. The children of the grandparents featured in the film all represent a different belief … it’s a truly fascinating film if you like this sort of thing and tied in very nicely with our history class.

The other film we saw was The Family Game. 
This one is more satirical and touches heavily on the consuming importance that education becomes in the family and how completely disjointed the family is because of this importance. It’s every stereo-type out there regarding the ‘family’ life in the 1980’s in Japan.

We also saw a documentary: Kokoyakyu: High School Baseball.  (The whole thing is available on YouTube)
This was a powerful documentary. It catalogues the lives of two baseball teams. One from a private school and another from a public school. It shows what these kids (freshmen to senior in high school) are put through every single day (there is no summer vacation), just in the HOPES of making it to the biggest championship of the year. We say that Baseball is an American pastime, but in this documentary I seriously believe it’s a Japanese one. It’s grueling and how these kids manage to survive on very little sleep and strenuous daily schedules… it’s unbelievable. If you like documentaries, I highly recommend this one.

Enjoy!