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Humanity & Paper Balloons - Masters of Cinema series [DVD] [1937]
 
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Humanity & Paper Balloons - Masters of Cinema series [DVD] [1937]

DVD ~ Chojuro Kawarasaki
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Actors: Chojuro Kawarasaki, Kanemon Nakamura, Tsuruzo Nakamura, Choemon Bando, Sukezo Sukedakaya
  • Directors: Sadao Yamanaka
  • Writers: Shintarô Mimura
  • Format: Black & White, PAL
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: PG
  • Studio: Eureka Entertainment
  • DVD Release Date: 25 Jul 2005
  • Run Time: 92 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B0007LYDIC
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 24,671 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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DVD Description

(Sadao Yamanaka, 1937) Japan | 1.33:1 OAR | Date of release: April 2005 Widely regarded as Yamanaka's greatest achievement, Humanity and Paper Balloons [Ninjo kami fusen] was, tragically, his last film, and only one of three that survive today. In a short, six year, 22 film career Yamanaka quickly earned a reputation for exceptionally fluid editing and a beautiful visual form likened to the paintings of Japanese masters. The story develops in the Tokugawa era of the 18th century, in a poor district of Tokyo, where impoverished samurai live from hand to mouth among equally poor people of lower social classes. One such ronin (masterless samurai) Matajuro, spends his day looking for work whilst his wife, Otaki, makes cheap paper balloons at home. One rainy night, Shinza, a barber, and equally penniless, impulsively abducts the daughter of a wealthy merchant, hiding her at Matajuro's home. Their desperate plan has grave consequences when a ransom attempt backfires. The film, which starts and ends with suicide, is deeply pessimistic, insisting that life in feudal Japan was hellish and short for those at the foot of the social ladder. Humanity and Paper Balloons premiered the day Yamanaka was drafted to the frontline at the start of WWII. He died in Manchuria, 1938, aged just 29. Boasting naturalistic performances and fine ensemble playing (from the left-wing theatre troupe Zenshin-za), The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present this rare gem for the first time on home video in the West.


Special Features

• New restored transfer • Optional English subtitles • Production stills gallery • New English subtitle translation • 16-page booklet with excerpts from Yamanaka's diaries and new essays by Tony Rayns, Shinji Aoyama, and Kimitoshi Sato • Plus more!
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Japanese Cinema Classic, 14 Sep 2005
By hj (London) - See all my reviews
Yamanaka has always been something of a legend in Japanese cinema: young radical film-maker of the 1930s, sent to Manchuria never to return and so, unlike Kurosawa, Ozu & Mizoguchi et al, he wasn't able to achieve maturity & a reputation in the post war era. Worse still, most of his several highly regarded films were destroyed in the war, only two survive. Humanity & Paper Balloons is basically a social realist drama about the inhabitants of a lower class neighbourhood exacting a 'comic' revenge on the gangsters and businessmen who oppress them. Obviously the film is a leftist allegory of sorts, relating to fascistic Japanese capitalism in the 1930s. Although downbeat, the film is not at all heavy handed or dour, it's beautifully directed and acted, comparable in ironic tone to Renoir perhaps. The poignancy in the film comes from an impoverished samurai couple in the neighbourhood who try to maintain their dignity with tragic results. This is a brilliant DVD edition in the excellent Eureka 'Masters of Cinema' series: a transfer from restored Toho original, new subtitles, a few extras and a comprehensive booklet with essays by well known critics including Tony Rayns. As usual with DVD and CD booklets the print is needlessly small & headache-inducing (ok I probably need glasses but still...). Overall, a thoroughly recommended DVD of a fine film. Let's hope they next release Yamanaka's other surviving gem, Million Ryo Pot.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Classically Japanese, 26 Mar 2009
By Budge Burgess (Kilmarnock, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
One of three films by director Sadao Yamanako in 1937 (he died in 1938 after having been drafted into the army). Set in 18th century Japan, it will contain many images familiar in Japanese cinema - tight sets, a sense of claustrophobic community with much of the action taking place in one narrow little street or tenement block, the camera shooting down streets emphasising the congestion and lack of privacy. And there will be rain. As a Scot, I'm aware that we constantly complain about the rain - the Japanese cinema celebrates it, it is a regular feature in Japanese films, a recognition that the climate and nature are essential to our being and cannot be excluded from life.

'Humanity and Paper Balloons' is a little cameo drama, an exploration of the struggle ordinary people face in making a living. It features a small community, the individuals and families who rent rooms or apartments from a single, slum landlord, their accommodation built round a small court or close rather than a 'street'. We begin with a suicide - an old samurai, down on his luck, too old to work at his profession, stripped of any role: he can't even take the 'honourable' way out because he has pawned his sword, so has to hang himself.

This is a community of street traders, ne'er do wells and drinkers, and hard working but impecunious families. Central to the plot is the gambler-come-hairdresser, Shinza (the film is based on a Japanese drama called "Shinza the barber"), and a down-on-his-luck samurai whose wife earns a living making paper balloons. The film will use the visual analogy of the balloons being at the mercy of wind and rain in the way the poor are at the mercy of the rich, the powerful, and the gangster. Honour, and the abuse of honour, will be a feature of the film, but underpinning it is a critical take on society - Japanese society in the 1930's was militaristic, rigid, formalistic, organised ... yet here were have a picture of a chaotic society, where the ruling classes abuse power, manipulate, lose control, make mistakes, find themselves forced to accede to the demands of lower classes.

It's a tragic film, with touching insights into the human condition. The poor and the ne'er-do-wells can demonstrate decency and courage, it's not the monopoly of the nobility or the warrior classes. And there's humour, largely in the shape of a blind man who sees more than people suppose. Beautifully filmed - tight, compact, on a human scale - and moving at a human pace, the drama largely unfolding in the second half of the film after the characters and situations have been established. It's a gripping, entertaining film and, despite its 1937 vintage, it has stood the test of time very well - it is an 18th century costume drama, but direction and acting remain vibrant (so many Western films of the 1930's have aged dramatically).

Only three of Yamanako's twenty or thirty films have survived and this is well worth watching, not just if you are a film buff but if you simply enjoy a good story, well told. The restoration of the film is excellent - picture and sound quality are good - and the narrative quality and performances of a fine cast will keep you watching. Simple, charming, and delightful.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a must see, 8 Jan 2008
I would place this amongst some of the other fine examples of the genere. Kurasawa's lower depths Mizoguchi's the life of O-haru. It is so delicate and sadly beautiful. A real gem. It has the rare quilties of some silent films, an unearthly stillness, as we follow a life spiriling away. Well worth any ones time.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful film, dim-witted commentary
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5.0 out of 5 stars a tale of troubled times
This film was made in 1937 though its subject-matter concerns an earlier troubled era, a hundred years or so before, when the ediface of the Tokugawa state was crumbling under the... Read more
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